Watch an Animated Video of Ceres

SCIENCE CORNER

A new animated video of dwarf planet Ceres, based on images taken by NASA’s Dawn spacecraft, provides a unique perspective of this heavily cratered, mysterious world.

The video is based on observations of Ceres that were taken from Dawn’s first mapping orbit, at an altitude of 8,400 miles, as well as the most recent navigational images taken from 3,200 miles.

Data from 80 images are combined into the video. Analysis of overlapping images provided three-dimensional detail. The vertical dimension is exaggerated by a factor of two in the video.

Dawn team member Ralf Jaumann of the German Aerospace Center (DLR), in Berlin said:

We used a three-dimensional terrain model that we had produced based on the images acquired so far. “They will become increasingly detailed as the mission progresses — with each additional orbit bringing us closer to the surface.

Watch the video here (make sure you enlarge the screen for an enhanced experience).

Data
from 80 images
are combined
into the video

Dawn entered its second mapping orbit on June 3. It will spend the rest of the month observing the dwarf planet from 2,700 miles above its surface. The spacecraft will conduct intensive observations of Ceres, completing orbits of about three days each.

Earlier this year, Dawn made history as the first mission to visit a dwarf planet, and the first to orbit two distinct extraterrestrial targets. It studied Vesta, a protoplanet in the main asteroid belt, for 14 months in 2011 and 2012, and arrived at Ceres on March 6, 2015.

Dawn’s mission is managed by JPL for NASA’s Science Mission Directorate in Washington. Dawn is a project of the directorate’s Discovery Program, managed by NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama. UCLA is responsible for overall Dawn mission science. Orbital ATK Inc., in Dulles, Virginia, designed and built the spacecraft. The German Aerospace Center, Max Planck Institute for Solar System Research, Italian Space Agency and Italian National Astrophysical Institute are international partners on the mission team.

Source: dawn.jpl.nasa.gov