The automatic interplanetary station Dawn reached Ceres. It was March 6, 2015 approximately at 05:39 Pacific Time (16:39 Moscow time), but only now NASA’s official Twitter of the mission to announce the probe to orbit the dwarf planet.
The main objective of the mission Dawn is to study the asteroid Vesta and Ceres, near which the machine was in August of 2011 during the year. The study of ancient cosmic bodies to better understand the history of the solar system.
During this time, Dawn surveyed the asteroid’s surface, allowing to create the first high-precision map of the cosmic body. Also, closer to Ceres, the station took a few shots of the dwarf planet, which can be seen mysterious white spots. Scientists believe that the station will determine their nature.
08:00 December 31, 2014
NASA Dawn probe was launched on September 27, 2007 via carrier rocket from the Baikonur Delta 2 at Cape Canaveral. The project cost is about $ 500 million.
In 2006, at the XXVI General Assembly of the International Astronomical Union decided to include asteroids Ceres not, as previously thought, but a dwarf planet.
Ceres was discovered in 1801 by Italian Giuseppe Piazzi and is named after the Roman goddess of fertility. The diameter of the space object is 950 kilometers, making it the largest celestial body in the asteroid belt.
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