Sunday Times 2
US spacecraft reaches dwarf planet Ceres
View(s):CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. (Reuters) – A US space probe slipped into orbit around Ceres, a miniature planet beyond Mars believed to be left over from the formation of the solar system, NASA said on Friday.
The dwarf planet Ceres taken by NASA's Dawn spacecraft on February 19 (Reuters)
Launched in 2007, the Dawn spacecraft made a 14-month tour of the asteroid Vesta before steering itself toward Ceres, the largest body in the asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter.
Dawn shifted its path to allow itself to be captured by Ceres’ gravity at 7:39 a.m. EST, becoming the first spacecraft to orbit a dwarf planet.
NASA’s New Horizons probe is scheduled to fly by another dwarf planet, Pluto, in the far reaches of the solar system later this year. Like Ceres, Pluto was once considered a full-fledged planet, but was reclassified after the discovery of similar bodies.
Scientists already have a mystery to solve. Last month as Dawn neared Ceres, it relayed images of startlingly bright spots on the surface, which could be patches of subsurface ice exposed after an asteroid or comet impact. They also could be deposits of salt or other minerals.
Scientists suspect Ceres may have had an underground ocean early in its history that later froze. Europe’s Herschel telescope last year detected water vapor around Ceres, a clue that impacting bodies may periodically send plumes of watery material shooting into space. Dawn will try to confirm those findings.