Zoom above the dwarf planet Ceres in new NASA animation

NASA’S Jet Propulsion Laboratory has released new colourful animation of a flyby over the dwarf planet Ceres.

Imagery included in the video was collected during Dawn’s high-altitude mapping mission, between August and October 2015.

“The stimulated overflight shows the wide range of crater shapes that we have encountered on Ceres”, said Ralf Jaumann scientists from Dawn’ mission. “The viewer can observe the sheer walls of the crater Occator, and also Dantu and Yalode, where the craters are a lot flatter”.

In addition, the movie runs through incredibly details scans of the planet’s most prominent craters such as Yalode, Occator, and Ahuna Mons. Their names sound whimsical because they are actually derived from earthly deities, agricultural spirits and festivals. We get to see Ceres in enhanced color to emphasize the subtle geological differences on the surface, with shades of blue illustrating areas believed to contain younger earth and structures like flows, pits, and cracks. Dawn is a project of the directorate’s Discovery Program, managed by NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama. It has already surveyed Vesta and is now in the orbit of the dwarf planet. With an average diameter of 590 miles, there has been plenty for Dawn to study since arriving in March 2013.

You’ll never visit dwarf planet Ceres, located in the main asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter, but a new video will let you see see what it’s like to fly over its rugged terrain. Scientists are hoping that the data gathered during Dawn’s orbit of Ceres and orbit data of the proto-planet Vesta will provide an insight into the way the universe was formed. The spacecraft is now in its final and lowest mapping orbit, at about 240 miles (385 kilometers) from the surface.