Covering a journey of 3 billion miles, NASA's spacecraft "Dawn" finally reached the dwarf planet named Ceres. Dawn is the first spacecraft to ever orbit a dwarf planet. The spacecraft has started orbiting and is taking close images of the planet. Dawn will not be landing; it will just orbit the dwarf planet for more than a year. During its stay there, Dawn will be exploring and photographing the icy surface of the planet. Previously Dawn has explored the asteroid Vesta. Dawn also achieved a record by being the first spacecraft to explore two planets.
Ceres: Overview
Ceres is a dwarf planet closest to earth. A dwarf planet is a celestial body which looks like a planet and has certain features of a planet but is not classified as a planet due to lack of certain technical criteria, namely size. Dwarf planets do, however,orbit the sun and have their own self gravity. Currently we have five dwarf planet in our solar system: Ceres, Pluto, Haumea, Makemake, and Eris.
Coming back to Ceres, it is the largest object in the asteroid belt residing between the planets Mars and Jupiter. It is named after the Roman goddess of agriculture, and was discovered in 1801. It was considered as a planet and an asteroid but recently got reclassified as a dwarf planet. The diameter of Ceres is 590 miles.
Recent reports suggest that Ceres may have a water vapor plume, surface ccean and its own atmosphere. Scientists believe that there is ice stored underneath the crust. If this is true then Ceres may have supported life forms.
Ceres also contains two mysterious spots that shine brightly when sun light falls on them. Scientists have yet to decipher what exactly they are. Some assume them to be ice volcanoes while others guess that they are nothing more than plain old salt.
