NASA Is About to Have Its Closest Encounter Ever with Dwarf Planet Ceres

By Tariq Malik, Space.com Managing Editor | June 1, 2018 12:58 pm ET

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NASA's Dawn spacecraft captured this photo of Ceres on May 16, 2018, as it approached its lowest orbit ever of the dwarf planet in the asteroid belt. At the time of this photo, Dawn was about 270 miles (440 kilometers) from Ceres.
Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/UCLA/MPS/DLR/IDA

A NASA spacecraft is about to get up close and personal with Ceres, a giant asteroid that also happens to be the only dwarf planet in the inner solar system.

This month, NASA's Dawn spacecraft will shift into an orbit that will skim just 22 miles (35 kilometers) above Ceres at its closest point, allowing Dawn to get its best views yet of the dwarf planet. At its farthest point, the new elliptical orbit will carry Dawn out 2,500 miles (4,000 kilometers).

"The team is eagerly awaiting the detailed composition and high-resolution imaging from the new, up-close examination," Carol Raymond, principal investigator for the Dawn mission at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, said in a statement. "These new high-resolution data allow us to test theories formulated from the previous data sets and discover new features of this fascinating dwarf planet." [See Dawn's Amazing Photos of Dwarf Planet Ceres]

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NASA Is About to Have Its Closest Encounter Ever with Dwarf Planet Ceres
NASA's Dawn spacecraft captured this photo of Ceres on May 16, 2018, as it approached its lowest orbit ever of the dwarf planet in the asteroid belt. At the time of this photo, Dawn was about 270 miles (440 kilometers) from Ceres.
Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/UCLA/MPS/DLR/IDA


A NASA spacecraft is about to get up close and personal with Ceres, a giant asteroid that also happens to be the only dwarf planet in the inner solar system.

This month, NASA's Dawn spacecraft will shift into an orbit that will skim just 22 miles (35 kilometers) above Ceres at its closest point, allowing Dawn to get its best views yet of the dwarf planet. At its farthest point, the new elliptical orbit will carry Dawn out 2,500 miles (4,000 kilometers).

"The team is eagerly awaiting the detailed composition and high-resolution imaging from the new, up-close examination," Carol Raymond, principal investigator for the Dawn mission at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, said in a statement. "These new high-resolution data allow us to test theories formulated from the previous data sets and discover new features of this fascinating dwarf planet." [See Dawn's Amazing Photos of Dwarf Planet Ceres]

One target on Ceres is especially tantalizing during the new, lower orbit. That's Occator Crater, a place with strange, bright white spots.

More:
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