The Dawn of an Exciting Year for Planetary Science!

A series of images put together by the Dawn
Frame Camera Team of Ceres on approach.
Image Credit: NASA / JPL / UCLA /
MPS / DLR / IDA / Emily Lakdawalla

In 2007, NASA launched a probe called Dawn into the asteroid belt to investigate two planetary bodies, Vesta and Ceres. Dawn reached Vesta in the summer of 2011 and after a year and a couple months of studying the asteroid, it was on its way to Ceres. We're in the winter of 2015 now, and Dawn is just starting to merge onto the orbital path of Ceres!

Dawn is expected to reach its orbital phase of the mission around Ceres in early May, and will most likely have high resolution images of this dwarf planet soon after that. As of this moment, the images presented are higher resolution images than what we have from the Hubble Space Telescope.

An image of Vesta taken by Dawn back in 2011.
Expect similar quality of Ceres in May 2015!
Image credit: NASA / JPL

A series of images showing Ceres as Dawn gets closer.
Image Credit: NASA / JPL / UCLA / MPS / DLR / IDA / Emily Lakdawalla

It is an exciting time for astronomy and planetary science (and humanity in general). Once the summer comes about, we will have witnessed how two planetary bodies look like up close and personal for the first time ever! Ceres will be its own prize, but everyone's eyes will be eager to see the other planetary body this summer - Pluto. More to come!

- SHH