NASA's Dawn spacecraft releases new images of dwarf planet Ceres

Beautiful new images released by NASA's Dawn spacecraft show a deeplycrateredand variable surface on the dwarf planetCeres.

In October,Dawn, which has been orbitingCeressince March 2015, travelled at the lowest altitude in its mission so far 1,480 kilometres above the surface. It was able to capture unprecedented images of several bright regions located in one particularly interesting region,OccatorCrater.

Ceresis found in the asteroid belt, which lies between the orbits of Mars and Jupiter. It is the largest dwarf planet in the region, accounting for 25 per cent of the belt's total mass.

When Dawn first sent back images of the surface in 2015, scientists were perplexed as to the composition of the bright spots, which they now believe to be formed by a variety of salts.

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OccatorCrateris about 92 kilometres wide and four kilometres deep. Research suggests that the crater has seen recent geological activity, which has pushed up a salty brine from thesubsurface. The material then froze before vaporizing throughsublimation.

"This image captures the wonder of soaring above this fascinating, unique world that Dawn is the first to explore," MarcRayman, Dawn's chief engineer and mission director, said in a statement.

A true-to-life colour image ofCereswas also released (planetary images are often released in falsecolour in order to highlight particular regions). The photograph is a combination of several images taken in 2015 and was produced by the German Aerospace Centre.

Since Nov.4, the spacecraft has embarked on its sixth science mission, which will take it about 7,200 kilometres from the surface of the dwarf planet.

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