Dawn mission
New Research Reveals Provides Insight into Mysterious Features on Airless Worlds
Between 2011 and 2018, NASA's Dawn mission conducted extended observations of Ceres and Vesta, the largest bodies in the Main…
Ice Deposits on Ceres Might Only Be a Few Thousand Years Old
The dwarf planet Ceres has some permanently dark craters that hold ice. Astronomers thought the ice was ancient when they…
A Hypervelocity Experiment Mimics the Surface Conditions of Ceres
It might be oxymoronic to say that the more we find out about something, the more mysterious it becomes. But…
Ceres Probably Formed Farther out in the Solar System and Migrated Inward
When Sicilian astronomer Giuseppe Piazzi spotted Ceres in 1801, he thought it was a planet. Astronomers didn't know about asteroids…
It’s Starting to Look Like Ceres is an Ocean World, Too
A new and thorough analysis of high-resolution images and data from NASA’s Dawn mission have now provided fresh insights into…
Space Dust Delivered Water to Vesta, Could it Have Done the Same for Earth?
One of the most enduring questions about Earth regards the origins of its water. Where did it come from? One…
Ceres is a Strange Place, Including a Volcanic Peak 4,000 Meters High Made From Bubbling Salt Water, Mud and Rock
Ceres, at almost 1,000 km (620 miles) in diameter, is the largest body in the asteroid belt. Between 2015 and…
Ceres Rolled Over at Some Point in the Past
According to a new study from the Planetary Science Institute, Ceres poles reoriented sometime in the past, which bolsters the…
Ceres Has Even More Organic Molecules on it Than Previously Thought
According to a new study from Brown University, it appears Ceres has more organic molecules on its surface than previously…
Wow! Asteroid/Dwarf Planet Ceres Once had an Ocean?
Two new studies produced by the Dawn mission team have shown that the protoplanet may have once had an ocean,…