The brightest spots on the dwarf planet Ceres are twinkling away - NASA’s Dawn Spacecraft has captured the most up-close view of it till date.
Scientists now have a much deeper perspective on these very strange and remarkable features on the surface of the planet thanks to the closet-yet images of Occator crater with a resolution of 450 feet per pixel.
The latest capture gives an up-close view revealing better-defined shapes of the brightest, central spot and features on the crater floor.
Marc Rayman, Dawn’s chief engineer and mission director from Nasa’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in California said, “Dawn has transformed what was so recently a few bright dots into a complex and beautiful, gleaming landscape.”
Dawn is the first mission ever to have visited a dwarf planet and the first to orbit 2 distinctive solar system targets.
Rayman stated, “Soon, the scientific analysis will reveal the geological and chemical nature of this mysterious and mesmerizing extraterrestrial scenery.”
These spots are a lot brighter than the rest of the surface of the planet and the team combined 2 different images into a single composite view, one of which has been properly exposed for the bright spots and one for the surrounding surfaces.
A virtual animation of a fly-around of the crater has also been produced by scientist that also includes a colorful topographic map.
It was noted by Dawn scientists that the rim of Occator crater is almost vertical in some places where it rises very steeply for almost 2 kms.
Dawn has already completed two 11-day cycles of mapping the surface of Ceres from its current altitude and in the next 2 months will be mapping all of Ceres.
Tasnuva Rahim
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