Dwarf Planet Ceres Captured in Stunning Detail

As it grew nearer, the photos also revealed a cone-shaped mountain.

This may soon be put to the test, because Dawn also captured an unnamed “mountain ridge, near lower left, that lies in the center of Urvara [Indian and Iranian deity of plants and fields] crater on Ceres…”

A “lonely mountain” stands unaccompanied on the icy gray surface of the dwarf planet Ceres, in wonderful new photographs from NASA’s Dawn spacecraft.

“Dawn is performing flawlessly in this new orbit as it conducts its ambitious exploration”.

The spacecraft, now hovering over its target orb at an altitude of about 915 miles (approximately 1,470 kilometers), has helped scientists document mountains, craters and fractures on Ceres’ surface in unprecedented detail. The images feature a resolution of about 450 feet (140 m) per pixel. Combined, they cover almost 1% of the surface of Ceres.

“The spacecraft’s view is now three times as sharp as in its previous mapping orbit, revealing exciting new details of this intriguing dwarf planet”, Marc Rayman, Dawn’s chief engineer and mission director, said in a statement.

Dawn will remain at its current orbital position for the next two months, mapping the entirety of Ceres six times.

This extensive imaging allows scientists to model the surface in 3D, and instruments on board the spacecraft are collecting information about the distribution and composition of materials on Ceres’ surface. If Ceres were the size of Earth and its mountain scaled accordingly, it would measure just a tick under 50 miles high, Time pointed out. In late October, Dawn will begin spiraling toward this final orbit, which will be at an altitude of 230 miles (375 kilometres). It has a diameter of about 945 kilometers (587 miles), which makes it the largest object in our Solar System’s asteroid belt. The probe arrived at Ceres on March 6, 2015.