NASA Dawn Probe Photographs Dwarf Planet Ceres

NASA’s Dawn spacecraft is quickly approaching the dwarf planet Ceres and on Monday afternoon the space agency released new photos showing what the gigantic cosmic mass looks like in ‘close up’ photos.

Ceres is the largest body in the asteroid belt that spans from Mars to Jupiter. The dwarf planet has an average diameter of 590 miles.

While the Hubble Telescope has taken higher resolution photos of Ceres, the Dawn spacecraft will use the up close and personal photographs to help guide Dawn closer to the dwarf planet.

The new photos were taken on January 13, and were shot from 238,000 miles away from Ceres.

As Dawn approaches ever closer to Ceres, the photographs of the dwarf planet will continue to improve in quality. The satellite is currently on-track to orbit Ceres on March 6. It will mark the first time that a spacecraft has visited Ceres.

Once in orbit NASA officials hope to study the dwarf planet for 16 months. Researchers are hoping to discover an icy surface that may contain an ocean. Current photos of the dwarf planet appear to show that Ceres is full of craters.

We can expect to learn a lot more about Ceres once data from its first orbiting satellite begins to send collected data back to NASA researchers.

NASA Dawn Probe Photographs Dwarf Planet Ceres