NASA's Dawn Mission

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Message 787447 - Posted: 26 Jul 2008, 10:32:09 UTC

I recently found out there is a dwarf planet called Ceres between the orbits of Mars and Jupiter in the asteroid belt. After researching this I found that NASA launched a probe last year (Sept. '07) to study a very large asteroid called Vesta and Ceres itself. It's going to stop at Vesta first around 2011–2012 and Ceres in 2015. The probe is actually going to stop at each object to study them rather than a flyby like other probes elsewhere in the past. The excerpt below is taken from wikipedia.

With a diameter of about 950 km, Ceres is by far the largest and most massive body in the asteroid belt, and contains approximately a third of the belt's total mass. Recent observations have revealed that it is spherical, unlike the irregular shapes of smaller bodies with lower gravity. The surface of Ceres is probably made of a mixture of water ice and various hydrated minerals like carbonates and clays. Ceres appears to be differentiated into a rocky core and ice mantle. It may harbour an ocean of liquid water, which makes it a target of current searches for extraterrestrial life. Ceres may be surrounded by a tenuous atmosphere containing water vapour.

wiki link: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ceres_(dwarf_planet)

JPL mission link: http://dawn.jpl.nasa.gov/mission/index.asp

You can find alot of data regarding Ceres on Google as well.


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Message boards : SETI@home Science : NASA's Dawn Mission


 
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