Because modern day rocket scientists ain't shiiiiiiiiit! Von Braun be spinning in his grave.
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Meet Ceres, dwarf planet and largest asteroid in the asteroid belt
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Because modern day rocket scientists ain't shiiiiiiiiit! Von Braun be spinning in his grave.
We can do a trip with hundreds of gravitational assists, all thanks to this man:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7BP4a5uyV1M#t=00m28s
That's both because there's a slowdown ahead of capture and because Dawn will actually go past Ceres to reach the desired orbit:
RC3 is the desired orbit, and the green line is the current trajectory. Each white dot is the position of Dawn in one-day intervals, so as you can see, a lot of time is actually spent going "past Ceres and back".
Better explanation than I can give here: http://earthsky.org/space/dawn-journal-update-on-trek-from-vesta-to-ceres
Well done, first post.
That's both because there's a slowdown ahead of capture and because Dawn will actually go past Ceres to reach the desired orbit:
RC3 is the desired orbit, and the green line is the current trajectory. Each white dot is the position of Dawn in one-day intervals, so as you can see, a lot of time is actually spent going "past Ceres and back".
Better explanation than I can give here: http://earthsky.org/space/dawn-journal-update-on-trek-from-vesta-to-ceres
That's banaynays
Closer images have gone up, showing multiple white spots.
In-depth analysis of the new photos (though there isn't much to gleam from it): http://www.universetoday.com/118795/an-even-closer-view-of-ceres-shows-multiple-white-spots-now/
Note that Dawn is now about 145,000 km from Ceres, which is less than half the distance from the Earth to the Moon!
Only one month left until Dawn reaches Ceres' orbit, and the mysteries of the white spots and many more will be answered.
Thats not a very good sphere, you can see the bumps everywhere.
triplestation
Member
First time I discovered stoya
BouncyFrag
Member
I'm looking forward to seeing better quality pics of Ceres. Gotta find out what that white spot is!
Slayer-33
Liverpool-2
RubberJohnny
Banned
Also here's Vesta, which it already stopped at. Whole thing is about 326 miles in diameter.
Getting closer yet. This is from five days ago, should have better ones soon:
Its like they took a picture of a potato with a potato.
Thanks for bumping the thread with the latest images. Glad to see others interested in this little dwarf planet.
Here are the latest images adjusted for color and put onto an orbiting sphere to get a fairly close representation of what you might see if you were riding with Dawn.
Here are the latest images adjusted for color and put onto an orbiting sphere to get a fairly close representation of what you might see if you were riding with Dawn.
Sectorseven
Member
Can't the Hubble take pictures of it?
My DSLR and a small telescope can. It just won't look so hot.
It can and it has. But Hubble is designed to take pictures of really, really big stuff that is really, really far away. It doesn't do so well with small stuff closer up. It comes out really blurry like the first photo in the OP.
That's why this mission to Ceres and the one to Pluto later this year are so exciting. It will be our first clear look at these dwarf planets.
Its not about design really. It just comes down to physics. Ceres is very far away and the hubble just doesn't have the light gathering capability and resolving power. Nothing that could have been done to its mirror could change what it can see with Ceres. Its basically as good a telescope you can have at that size anyway.
Still waiting for this to finish loading...
Pretty unreal isn't it
davepoobond
you can't put a price on sparks
For some reason I thought this was out past Pluto. Excited to know more about it.
You are probably thinking of Eris which is out towards Pluto (well, beyond it). New horizoins will be at Pluto near sumertime. It will download pictures to earth at 1kbs. Basically like having 14.4k modems again!
That is blowing my mind right now. Incredible!Also here's Vesta, which it already stopped at. Whole thing is about 326 miles in diameter.
Now we all can feel how our Australian buddies browse the internet!
Amazing images. Loving this thread.
Its hard to grasp the scale of this thing...seems so small as it is without a scale comparison.
Also here's Vesta, which it already stopped at. Whole thing is about 326 miles in diameter.
Its hard to grasp the scale of this thing...seems so small as it is without a scale comparison.
First pic in the OP is taken by Hubble.
Small objects don't reflect much light, so they are hard to take photos of. Hubble takes awesome photos of gigantic nebulas and galaxies that are putting out a ton of light and that's why those photos are so detailed, but photos of Ceres or Pluto are blurry and not detailed at all.
davepoobond
you can't put a price on sparks
Yeah you're probably right. I must have heard Eris once and thought it was the same as Ceres or something.
Eris sounded more exciting to me since its so far out there, but the info in the OP made me interested in Ceres too.
Any Questions
Member
Bloomin great post. All things space at good for me. Also make sure I watch the sky at night. A bit of iplayer time now and then brings me up to speed.
It still looks big as shit to me.
soxinthebox
Member
Wow I didn't realise they were doing this - those photos are amazing. It's crazy we've got such good images of this planet before Pluto though I think they're coming this year too.
Latest images are up on NASA's site.
Uncropped image: http://www.nasa.gov/sites/default/files/thumbnails/image/pia19184.jpg
http://www.nasa.gov/jpl/dawn/bright-spot-on-ceres-has-dimmer-companion/#.VO3o4FPF_FL
I so hope those spots are ice volcanoes.
Uncropped image: http://www.nasa.gov/sites/default/files/thumbnails/image/pia19184.jpg
http://www.nasa.gov/jpl/dawn/bright-spot-on-ceres-has-dimmer-companion/#.VO3o4FPF_FL
I so hope those spots are ice volcanoes.
Icy what you did there
I hope they're cities.
It's a highway sign pointing to the nearest galactic rest stop.
I Stalk Alone
Member
When do we start hauling it to earth orbit and start mining it?
This is the other thing.
There's definitely gotta be some kind of repurcussion for adding water into earth's system from outside.... but it would be a huge help if we could somehow extract water from Ceres and give it to drought stricken regions.
John Kowalski
Banned
would you drink Ceresian water?
Graphics Horse
Member
Isn't the ocean closer than Ceres?
Yes.
As far as we know, earth's water is the only place where a bacteria or virus in the water could make you sick.
perfectchaos007
Member
Right now Ceres' water is pure. Time for Earthlings to muck it up.
The surface area of Vesta is roughly the size of Turkey. So it is pretty small.
Food, Lodging, Gas Giant next exit.
First thing we do is frack it.
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