The time has almost arrived. NASA's Dawn spacecraft has sent back some of the first pictures of the dwarf planet, Ceres, after spending about a month approaching the world from its dark side.
"They are on the ground," Dawn's deputy principal investigator, Carol Raymond, said in an email, adding that the images will be released early next week.
Ceres is one of five dwarf planets found in our solar system and is the largest body found in the asteroid belt located between Mars and Jupiter. Scientists believe that learning more about this icy world could shed light on the early evolution of the solar system.
Until the arrival of Dawn on March 6, scientists knew very little about the dwarf planet. The new images snapped of the tiny little world were taken approximately 20,500 miles from the surface and are roughly 9.5 times better than the images taken by NASA's Hubble Space Telescope in 2003 and 2004, which were, until now, the best shots we had of Ceres.
Don't expect to be too impressed, however. Even with the improved resolution, the shots probably won't be as impressive as the first shots taken by Dawn while on its approach. The images will only show Ceres in partial daylight and will be used only for navigational purposes, scientists said.
"We want to see exactly where Ceres is relative to ourselves and the star background," said UCLA planetary scientist Christopher Russell, the mission's principal investigator.
Scientists plan to take a few more navigational images next week, the high quality images that will mark the beginning of the science mission won't be taken until later this month.
"We are expecting to resolve the bright spots with the next set" of images, Russell said, referring to the mysterious, luminous areas on the surface that have piqued the interest of scientists and lay folk alike.
The bright spots may be filled with relatively "fresh material" - perhaps rich in water ice or salts, Russell said. But until they get a better look, there's no way to say for sure.
It seems at least for now the blurry, decade-old Hubble images will have to do and could still be useful to researchers, helping them pick out any major changes to Ceres over the last decade.
"Are they consistent with what we're seeing today, or has the surface changed?" Russell said.
Although scientists have had to cool their heels for the last month, the relative lull wasn't all bad, according to Raymond.
"I'm feeling pretty good because I finally had a chance to catch my breath," Raymond said. "Now we've had a chance to talk about what we think we're going to see and talk about these initial data - and get ourselves in tune with what lies ahead. It's going to be a lot of fun."
