Dawn probe sent images of Ceres in the maximum resolution Bashny.Net

Spacecraft Dawn continues to work on the planetoid Ceres. Now the probe sent pictures of an object taken from a distance of about 1470 km, the smallest details are visible images of Ceres surface. Among the other objects on the photo came conical mountain planetoid, the crater and some other objects. At Dawn it took about 11 days in which to take pictures of the entire surface of the planetoid. Each 11-day cycle comprises 14 different orbits. The next two months will go out to perform the mapping of the entire Ceres, and not once, but six times.

The resolution of each photo, as mentioned above, the maximum, with 140 meters per pixel. 1 photograph, taken from the current orbit of Dawn, covers slightly less than 1% of the planetoid. This works not only the camera - normal and infrared spectrometers receive data to help scientists understand the structure and the structure of Ceres.




The conical mountain height of 6 kilometers. When you click on a picture to open the picture in full size (NASA / JPL-Caltech / UCLA / MPS / DLR / IDA)

Engineers and scientists are now conduct an assessment of the gravitational field of Ceres, in order to be able to seamlessly make the transition to the most Dawn low orbit (375 kilometers from the surface). This will happen in the second half of October.

The diameter of the Ceres is 940 km, and is the largest object in the asteroid belt, which lies between Mars and Jupiter. In fact, the size of Ceres, is about 40% the size of Pluto.



Dawn reached Ceres March 6 of this year, and immediately began work on the subject. The total length of stay of the probe at Ceres will be about 16 months. At the same time during a rapprochement with the planetoid from spacecraft have problems - probe stops responding control center. Immediately after that, the computer Dawn went into safe mode, and after a while re-started.









Source: geektimes.ru/post/260846/