Dawn probe descends to LAMO over Ceres THIS WEEK!! will humanity finally discover the true nature of the bright spots of Ceres??!!

Dec 04, 2015


Soaring on a blue-green beam of high-velocity xenon ions, Dawn is making excellent progress as it spirals closer and closer to Ceres, the first dwarf planet discovered. Meanwhile, scientists are progressing in analyzing the tremendous volume of pictures and other data the probe has already sent to Earth.

Dawn's spiral descent from its third mapping orbit (HAMO), at 915 miles (1,470 kilometers), to its fourth (LAMO), at 240 miles (385 kilometers). The two mapping orbits are shown in green. The color of Dawn's trajectory progresses through the spectrum from blue, when it began ion-thrusting in HAMO, to red, when it arrives in LAMO. The red dashed sections show where Dawn is coasting for telecommunications.

It requires 118 spiral revolutions around Ceres to reach the low altitude (and additional revolutions to prepare for and conduct the trajectory correction maneuver described below). Compare this to the previous spiral. (Readers with total recall will note that this is fewer loops than illustrated last year. The flight team has made several improvements in the complex design since then, shortening the time required and thus allowing more time for observing Ceres.)

Dawn is flying down to an average altitude of about 240 miles (385 kilometers), where it will conduct wide-ranging investigations with its suite of scientific instruments. The spacecraft will be even closer to the rocky, icy ground than the International Space Station is to Earth's surface. The pictures will be four times sharper than the best it has yet taken.



[link to www.spacedaily.com]

Last Edited by Digital mix guy Spock on 12/06/2015 09:59 AM