25 August 2015 News

NASA’s Dawn gets up close and personal with Ceres: stunning conical mountain revealed in detail

People who write about dwarf planet Ceres rarely fail to mention about how mysterious it is. But NASA’s Dawn mission is changing that, somewhat.

Ceres is the largest object in the asteroid belt, which immediately brings home its attraction.

And the mission to Ceres has already been plenty interesting.

Marc Rayman, Dawn chief engineer and mission director, has written for us about the importance of the ion propulsion engine to the Dawn mission.

Now NASA has published some truly spectacular close-ups of Ceres that have come our way via Dawn.

Of particular interest is the dramatic, conical mountain on Ceres that Dawn snapped. This mountain is just a little bit shorter than Mt. Everest.

What particularly makes the mountain stand out is just how small Ceres truly is – just 952 km across.

Only time will tell if the mountain will get an amazing name like some of the formations on Pluto and Charon did.

Popular articles

Popular articles

Science

A bun in the (space) oven - Reasons not to get pregnant while going around Earth at 7.8 kilometres per second

SLS carrying an Orion spacecraft lifts off the pad at Launch Complex 39B, Kennedy Space Center, Florida, on 16 November 2022. Lounge

Lego’s tribute to NASA’s SLS and Artemis