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Dawn Drops To 1470km Orbit, Snaps Sharper Pictures of Ceres

Posted by Soulskill on from the pretty-pictures dept.

An anonymous reader writes: NASA's Dawn spacecraft, after an extensive series of high orbits around Ceres, has now dropped to just 1,470 kilometers over the dwarf planet's surface. It has begun an 11-day process to map the entirety of Ceres, which it will repeat several times over the next couple months. Its lower orbit now allows photo resolution of ~140 meters per pixel, and it has sent back some great images. "Engineers and scientists will also refine their measurements of Ceres' gravity field, which will help mission planners in designing Dawn's next orbit — its lowest — as well as the journey to get there. In late October, Dawn will begin spiraling toward this final orbit, which will be at an altitude of 230 miles (375 kilometers)."

45 comments

  1. The shiny thing is a mountain? by GoodNewsJimDotCom · · Score: 3, Interesting

    That's pretty cool. Maybe it was made with an impact of another object from somewhere else. Does anyone know what the official scientists think it is?

    --
    God spoke to me
    1. Re:The shiny thing is a mountain? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      No, the mountain is somewhere else. The shiny things are clusters of electric light from the alien settlements around the main base: https://www.nasa.gov/sites/default/files/thumbnails/image/pia19617.jpg

    2. Re:The shiny thing is a mountain? by Tablizer · · Score: 1

      What's an "official scientist"? You mean NASA staff scientists?

      --
      Table-ized A.I.
    3. Re:The shiny thing is a mountain? by Bathroom+Humor · · Score: 1

      I think it's something taking pictures of our probe. Or maybe it's muzzle flash from a shotgun.

      We are violating their privacy first, so by all means I think they have the right retaliate.

    4. Re:The shiny thing is a mountain? by The+Grim+Reefer · · Score: 1

      What's an "official scientist"?

      Anyone wearing a white lab coat standing in front of panels with lots of blinking lights, in this case.

    5. Re:The shiny thing is a mountain? by Greyfox · · Score: 1

      Did you see that 4 mile high glowing pyramid? That's precursor technology right there! We need to mount an expedition to it so we can be the bait in a real-life "Alien vs Predator" scenario! Because that's ALWAYS what happens when you mount an expedition to a 4 mile high glowing pyramid on Ceres!

      --

      I'm trying to teach myself to set people on fire with my mind... Is it hot in here?

    6. Re:The shiny thing is a mountain? by Maritz · · Score: 1

      Richard Hoagland..!? :)

      --
      I do not want your cheap brainburning drugs. They are useless for work. And I am a working man today.
    7. Re:The shiny thing is a mountain? by mcswell · · Score: 1

      with tape drives

  2. Is this a joker? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Funny

    Why so Ceres?

    1. Re: Is this a joker? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      You can't be Sirius.

    2. Re: Is this a joker? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      airplane?

  3. Mis-parsed the headline by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Funny

    I thought it said "Dow drops 1470" and had a minor arrhythmia.

  4. Here's an idea by Anonymous Coward · · Score: -1

    Next time, attach a GoPro to a SpaceX rocket and save tens of billions of taxpayers money.

    1. Re:Here's an idea by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      SpaceX? You mean the toy firecrackers that never went beyond Earth orbit? Those rockets? Shit, 40 year old Soviet technology is better.

    2. Re:Here's an idea by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Yes because Donald Trump is going to need all of our spare taxpayer money to build a huge wall, purge non white people from amerikkka, and also to bomb Iran, and start WW3 with the North Koreans.
      .

    3. Re:Here's an idea by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      At what point does the 14th repeal go back to? If your mother was born here, is she going but you, also born here, fine? What about your grandfather? If he was born here but HIS parents not, is he leaving, his kids leaving and his grandkids leaving, or just him? Or him and his kids, but not the grandkids?

      If it were "grandfathered in" if no living relative was born here by immigrant parents, this would affect the rich far more than the poor, since the poor have low life expectancies. And the higher the strata, the more interconnected they are and the more likely they have a common predecessor.

      What about naturalised? Weren't born here AT ALL, just came over and said "I want to be an American!", whilst those born here were NEVER ASKED, never mind answered in the affirmative. Where in the constitution does it allow for naturalised or the children of naturalised Americans (who are the children of immigrants, not NATURAL BORN Americans) to come in that doesn't also fall if the 14th does?

      And H1Bs, since they don't get representation, and aren't citizens, are they going to be free of taxes (cf No Taxation Without Representation), are they absolved of obeying the constitution because they're not protected by it? And the laws are an agreement by the citizen via their chosen representative who drafted and accepted these laws, but H1Bs and immigrants don't vote and therefore haven't any implied agreement for the laws written. Should they be free from the laws, except as where the laws are also comensurate with those from their "natural" country of origin?

    4. Re:Here's an idea by Peristaltic · · Score: 1

      Yes because Donald Trump is going to need all of our spare taxpayer money to build a huge wall, purge non white people from amerikkka, and also to bomb Iran, and start WW3 with the North Koreans. .

      My goodness, you say all that like it's a bad thing... I mean, come on- we wouldn't want to build a small wall, "purge the non white people" from Iran, bomb North Korea, or start WW3 with "amerikkka", would we?

      Seriously- Thanks for your input, but we already know Trump's an ass-hat. When you're finished handing out fliers for the second coming of Jesus and Bigfoot, be sure and get your meds refilled.

    5. Re:Here's an idea by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      You sound very serious. Tell us more; please do it in all caps so we get the point.

    6. Re:Here's an idea by Lodlaiden · · Score: 1

      That's a party line I can hang my hat on. That's a weird way to spell AMURICA though.

      --
      Suborbital [spaceflight] is the special olympics of spaceflight. - Rei
  5. Typical Federal employee by timrod · · Score: 0

    Dawn is such a typical Federal employee. From the article: "Dawn reached Ceres on March 6th, 2015". Doesn't it know that we taxpayers pay its salary, and that we're not paying for it to take five months to get within 1,470 km of the planet, and then another two to get within 375 km? I think we should fire Dawn and replace it with someone more competent. Maybe one of those Mars rovers is available for work.

    1. Re:Typical Federal employee by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Why do you nerds have such awful senses of humor?

    2. Re:Typical Federal employee by Tablizer · · Score: 1

      to take five months to get within...

      It has an ion engine. While quite efficient, current ion engines are slow. One advantage of ion engines is that they can use electricity from solar panels for power, and thus the probe doesn't have to carry large amounts of chemical fuel. This makes the launch cheaper, saving tax-payers money. See, the government cares!

      --
      Table-ized A.I.
  6. Me, too by smittyoneeach · · Score: 1

    First day, new eyes.

    --
    Get thee glass eyes, and, like a scurvy politician, seem to see things thou dost not.--King Lear
  7. Sad but true by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    My first reaction was: "They misspelled DOW."

  8. Alternate Link? by advocate_one · · Score: 1

    Anyone got an alternate link to the photo? Cos you beggars have killed NASA's servers yet again...

    --
    Donald 'Duck' Dunn: We had a band powerful enough to turn goat piss into gasoline.
  9. how low can it go? by dominux · · Score: 1

    Clearly it is at a good height now for imaging the whole surface, but as there is no atmosphere could it get down to a mountain scraping orbit? Just high enough to get round the lumps and bumps and variability in the roundness of the object? Would that enable it to image things at a really small pixel size?

    1. Re:how low can it go? by cobbaut · · Score: 1

      Clearly it is at a good height now for imaging the whole surface, but as there is no atmosphere could it get down to a mountain scraping orbit? Just high enough to get round the lumps and bumps and variability in the roundness of the object? Would that enable it to image things at a really small pixel size?

      Not really. The lower your orbit, the faster your spacecraft has to fly to maintain that orbit.

      --
      European Linux user, living in Antwerp
    2. Re:how low can it go? by stevelinton · · Score: 4, Informative

      as there is no atmosphere could it get down to a mountain scraping orbit? Just high enough to get round the lumps and bumps and variability in the roundness of the object? Would that enable it to image things at a really small pixel size?

      Apart from the question of what range the instruments were designed tooperaqte best at, the other problem is the unevenness of Ceres gravity. They are mapping that now, but it's unlikely the mass of Ceres is perfectly symmetrically arranged, so the gravity will be uneven. Those unevennesses distort the orbit and cause it to change over time. If you're 300 km away that's not a big problem, except that you occasionally have to use up some reaction mass to get back where you want to be. At 10km it would probabl;y be disasterous.

      For the same reason it's very hard to keep a probe in a stable orbit less than 100km or so above Earth's moon.

    3. Re:how low can it go? by stevelinton · · Score: 1

      Clearly it is at a good height now for imaging the whole surface, but as there is no atmosphere could it get down to a mountain scraping orbit? Just high enough to get round the lumps and bumps and variability in the roundness of the object? Would that enable it to image things at a really small pixel size?

      Not really. The lower your orbit, the faster your spacecraft has to fly to maintain that orbit.

      True, but in zero gee and with no atmosphere that isn't really a problem. It would take some time and reaction mass to get into such a low orbit. The problem is the uneven gravity field -- see my other post,

    4. Re:how low can it go? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Clearly it is at a good height now for imaging the whole surface, but as there is no atmosphere could it get down to a mountain scraping orbit? Just high enough to get round the lumps and bumps and variability in the roundness of the object? Would that enable it to image things at a really small pixel size?

      Not really. The lower your orbit, the faster your spacecraft has to fly to maintain that orbit.

      True, but in zero gee and with no atmosphere that isn't really a problem. It would take some time and reaction mass to get into such a low orbit. The problem is the uneven gravity field -- see my other post,

      Zero Gee? It's not zero Gee, that's the whole point. It is very much being affected by Ceres' gravity which is why it must carefully establish "Orbit" at various levels and appropriate speeds to keep from being pulled all the way down.

    5. Re:how low can it go? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Everyone knows from playing Kerbals that he really meant no atmosphere to aero-brake a close orbit that would drop the velocity of the vehicle low enough to bring the periapsis below the surface of Ceres, duh.

    6. Re:how low can it go? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      The orbital speed at ground level is vastly higher than the "crash and burn, making a crater" speed of landing. Aerobraking allows you to land on the ground at the velocity the ground is moving at as opposed to the orbital speed at the ground's distance away from the centre of gravity.

      And I'm wondering: why is there NOBODY AT ALL demanding Ceres be reinstated as a planet, not this fake "dwarf planet" nomenclature bullhorned through by the corrupt IAU who know nothing about a planet, because they don't think that Pluto is one, when that's what I was taught in school!!!!!

    7. Re:how low can it go? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      For the same reason it's very hard to keep a probe in a stable orbit less than 100km or so above Earth's moon.

      Aren't the problems caused by the external field, not (only/mainly) by the shape of the body? Earth's moon is much closer to earth than Ceres to the sun. The external field there should be quite uniform, resulting in CoG very close to CoM.

    8. Re:how low can it go? by userw014 · · Score: 1

      The NASA/JPL page says that the planned closest orbit will be at an altitude of 375km (235 miles). (I'm not sure how that'll be measured from a somewhat irregular object like Ceres.) The orbit at 1470km will take 14 orbits to make 11 passes.

      Does anyone have any idea of how many small objects might orbit Ceres and pose a threat to Dawn?

    9. Re:how low can it go? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Mountains and uneven mass distribution within planetary bodies are more than enough to cause perturbations to orbits. What things like a third body, like Earth, or even the Sun with its distance from Ceres, can do is allow for processes that further amplify those perturbations, and allow for mechanisms that can increase the eccentricity of the orbit.

  10. is that really a mountain? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    I don't know if my brain is playing tricks on me but looking at the shadows I think the light source is on the right.
    and for that bright feature the light is on the left side. which would mean that it's actually a crater, not a mountain.

  11. Angel Delight (UK centric) by whimdot · · Score: 1

    After peering at these pictures for a while, trying to interpret the mounds and hollows I finally realised that the surface of Ceres is made of Angel Delight. To you non-UK folk out there, Wikipedia has a nice picture of butterscotch Angel Delight that may give you a flavour of what I'm trying to convey. It even has a few of those lumps that used to surface after it had been mixed unevenly, with the slight crunch.

    1. Re:Angel Delight (UK centric) by JonnyCalcutta · · Score: 1

      I dunno. Its a good theory but how would you account for the 4km high pyramid? Standard angel delight is too gloopy.

  12. NASA can't get to the moon, let alone "outside" by Thing+1 · · Score: 1, Funny

    The Earth is provably flat; level water proves it. Moonlight makes things colder (it's warmer in moonlight's shadow), unlike sunlight, so it's not reflected sunlight. A lunar eclipse has been witnessed with the sun also in the sky; this is impossible if the Earth is a ball.

    NASA has been proven to lie. Why trust liars? They employ graphic artists to "wow" us.

    Look through the strongest telescope you can; the planets are a bright light. It's only through NASA's "you have no access" devices that we can see higher resolution paintings. (Did you know the Vatican's telescope is named Lucifer?)

    The ISS "space walk" footage is performed in a pool in Texas; look carefully at the footage and you can see bubbles arising. There aren't bubbles in space. This woman "on the ISS" permed her hair so we can't see it move around from the turbulence in the "vomit comet" airplane, in which the footage is being filmed; you can hear the airplane engines during said footage.

    See http://ifers.boards.net/ as well as Samuel Rowbotham's "Zetetic Astronomy": http://www.sacred-texts.com/ea...

    --
    I feel fantastic, and I'm still alive.
    1. Re:NASA can't get to the moon, let alone "outside" by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      This is a evidence for a peculiar sense of humor or you're a special kind of crazy. Either way, congratulations!

    2. Re:NASA can't get to the moon, let alone "outside" by RogerWilco · · Score: 1

      Hah. You even believe that NASA exists.

      NASA doesn't exist, as the "American continents" are a lie by the government.
      Those few "Americans" we see here are government spies, don't believe anything they say.

      --
      RogerWilco the Adventurous Janitor
    3. Re:NASA can't get to the moon, let alone "outside" by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Now that you mention it, we have to confess

      All of humanity is contained in a processing unit on a dwarf planet in the asteroid belt

      This was accomplished after a horrible cataclysm around six millennia ago which destroyed the human home world

      Since that time human development was allowed to restart on a simulated home world, Earth

      This simulated humanity has recently 'discovered' the processing unit that actually contains their combined mentality

      cool story bro

    4. Re:NASA can't get to the moon, let alone "outside" by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      NASA has been proven to lie. Why trust liars? They employ graphic artists to "wow" us.

      The internet has been proven to lie, why trust anything on the internet? The internet also employs graphic artists... much more so than NASA.

    5. Re:NASA can't get to the moon, let alone "outside" by Peristaltic · · Score: 1

      You poor, naive, fool.

      NASA exists, it's run by Masons.

      The pics of the "bright light" craters were photoshopped to remove evidence of a replica of the Lodge of the Holy Saints John of Jerusalem.

      We're everywhere, my friend...everywhere.

    6. Re:NASA can't get to the moon, let alone "outside" by mcswell · · Score: 1

      All of humanity is contained in a processing unit on a dwarf planet in the asteroid belt

      This was leaked (albeit in a slightly different version) in 1943, by Antoine de Saint-Exupéry.