Fresh imagery from NASA’s Dawn spacecraft reveal the icy dwarf planet Ceres in new detail, showing surface features coming into focus as the probe nears insertion into orbit for a comprehensive survey of the unexplored world.
The pictures taken Wednesday are the sharpest images ever taken of Ceres, with a resolution of 8.5 miles, or 14 kilometers.
Dawn took the images at a distance of about 90,000 miles from
Ceres as the spacecraft zooms toward a rendezvous with the dwarf planet in the next few months.
Ceres spans 590 miles across, and scientists believe it is likely covered in a crust of ice. Ceres is the largest object in the asteroid belt between the orbits of Mars and Jupiter.
Dawn will survey Ceres from a series of different altitudes, measuring the world’s composition, internal structure, and surface characteristics.
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