Post by glactus on Aug 7, 2011 2:30:42 GMT
The Dawn spacecraft
Dawn is a spacecraft sent by NASA with international cooperation on a space exploration mission to the two largest members of the asteroid belt — Vesta and the dwarf planet Ceres. The Dawn mission is managed by NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, a division of the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena, for NASA's Science Mission Directorate in Washington DC. Launched on September 27, 2007, Dawn reached Vesta on July 16, 2011, which it will orbit and explore until 2012.
The Asteroid Vesta
It is scheduled to reach Ceres in 2015. It will be the first spacecraft to visit either body. Previous multi-target missions — such as the Voyager program — have instead been rapid planetary flybys.
The Dwarf planet Ceres
The mission's goal is to characterize the conditions and processes of the solar system's earliest eon by investigating in detail two of the largest protoplanets remaining intact since their formation. Ceres and Vesta have many contrasting characteristics that are thought to have resulted from them forming in two different regions of the early solar system. Vesta is thought to consist of a metallic iron–nickel core, an overlying rocky olivine mantle, with a surface crust.
Asteroid Vesta animation
Looking at Vesta
Credits: These are NASA/JPLimages
Text by Wikipedia/Glactus
Telescope in avatar: Meade 16" LX 200 on equatorial pier
Astronomer in avatar: Glactus