Keep the shuttle flying: Fwd: Dawn captures new images of Ceres bright spot

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From: "Gary Johnson" <gjohnson144@comcast.net>
Date: September 10, 2015 at 11:45:01 AM CDT
To: "Gary Johnson" <gjohnson144@comcast.net>
Subject: FW: Dawn captures new images of Ceres bright spot

September 9, 2015
Ceres' Bright Spots Seen in Striking New Detail
This image, made using images taken by NASA's Dawn spacecraft, shows Occator crater on Ceres, home to a collection of intriguing bright spots. Image credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/UCLA/MPS/DLR/IDA
› Full image and caption
The brightest spots on the dwarf planet Ceres gleam with mystery in new views delivered by NASA's Dawn spacecraft. These closest-yet views of Occator crater, with a resolution of 450 feet (140 meters) per pixel, give scientists a deeper perspective on these very unusual features.
The new up-close view of Occator crater from Dawn's current vantage point reveals better-defined shapes of the brightest, central spot and features on the crater floor. Because these spots are so much brighter than the rest of Ceres' surface, the Dawn team combined two different images into a single composite view -- one properly exposed for the bright spots, and one for the surrounding surface.
Scientists also have produced animations that provide a virtual fly-around of the crater, including a colorful topographic map.
http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/spaceimages/details.php?id=pia19890
http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/spaceimages/details.php?id=pia19891
Dawn scientists note the rim of Occator crater is almost vertical in some places, where it rises steeply for 1 mile (nearly 2 kilometers).
Views from Dawn's current orbit, taken at an altitude of 915 miles (1,470 kilometers), have about three times better resolution than the images the spacecraft delivered from its previous orbit in June, and nearly 10 times better than in the spacecraft's first orbit at Ceres in April and May.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lK03byyCFVs
"Dawn has transformed what was so recently a few bright dots into a complex and beautiful, gleaming landscape," said Marc Rayman, Dawn's chief engineer and mission director based at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, California. "Soon, the scientific analysis will reveal the geological and chemical nature of this mysterious and mesmerizing extraterrestrial scenery."
The spacecraft has already completed two 11-day cycles of mapping the surface of Ceres from its current altitude, and began the third on Sept. 9. Dawn will map all of Ceres six times over the next two months. Each cycle consists of 14 orbits. By imaging Ceres at a slightly different angle in each mapping cycle, Dawn scientists will be able to assemble stereo views and construct 3-D maps.
Dawn is the first mission to visit a dwarf planet, and the first to orbit two distinct solar system targets. It orbited protoplanet Vesta for 14 months in 2011 and 2012, and arrived at Ceres on March 6, 2015.
Dawn's mission is managed by JPL for NASA's Science Mission Directorate in Washington. Dawn is a project of the directorate's Discovery Program, managed by NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama. UCLA is responsible for overall Dawn mission science. Orbital ATK Inc., in Dulles, Virginia, designed and built the spacecraft. The German Aerospace Center, Max Planck Institute for Solar System Research, Italian Space Agency and Italian National Astrophysical Institute are international partners on the mission team. For a complete list of mission participants, visit:
http://dawn.jpl.nasa.gov/mission
More information about Dawn is available at the following sites:
http://dawn.jpl.nasa.gov
http://www.nasa.gov/dawn

Media Contact
Elizabeth Landau / Preston Dyches
NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif.
818-354-6425 / 818-354-7013
elizabeth.landau@jpl.nasa.gov / preston.dyches@jpl.nasa.gov

2015-294

Dawn captures new images of Ceres bright spot
However impressive the new photographic details are, they don't move scientists at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory any closer to confirming what Ceres' bright spot actually is.

PASADENA, Calif., Sept. 9 (UPI) -- NASA's Dawn spacecraft recently beamed back the closest images yet of the mysterious bright spot glowing from the bottom of Ceres' Occator crater.
Dawn is currently orbiting the dwarf planet at an altitude of 915 miles, capturing images at a resolution of 450 feet per pixel -- three times the resolution captured during the craft's June orbit.
Dawn is currently in the middle of its third mapping cycle, which began on September 9 and will last 11 days. Each cycle consists of 14 orbits, during which Dawn and its imaging instruments map the entirety of Ceres' surface. Over the next two months, Dawn will map Ceres six more times, each time from a slightly different angle.
The latest image of the bright spot reveals the glow not as a bright blur, as early images did, but an intricate landscape of reflection. The image is actually a composite of two images -- one using an exposure appropriate for the bright spot, and another using an exposure matched to the surrounding crater.
However impressive the new photographic details are, they don't move scientists at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory any closer to confirming what Ceres' bright spot actually is.
"Dawn has transformed what was so recently a few bright dots into a complex and beautiful, gleaming landscape," Marc Rayman, Dawn's chief engineer and mission director at JPL, said in a press release. "Soon, the scientific analysis will reveal the geological and chemical nature of this mysterious and mesmerizing extraterrestrial scenery."

© 2015 United Press International, Inc. All Rights Reserved.

Dawn gets better look at bright spots on Ceres
September 9, 2015 by Stephen Clark
This image taken by NASA's Dawn spacecraft, shows Occator crater on Ceres, home to a collection of intriguing bright spots. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/UCLA/MPS/DLR/IDA
NASA's Dawn spacecraft, nearly halfway through its exploration of the dwarf planet Ceres, has returned its best images yet of a mysterious grouping of bright spots inside a crater on the Texas-sized world, bolstering evidence that Ceres is geologically alive.
Six months after its arrival at Ceres, the Dawn probe is now circling the frozen dwarf planet at a distance of about 915 miles (1,470 kilometers), the third of four orbits taking the spacecraft progressively closer to Ceres.
The view of a crater named Occator released Wednesday is the sharpest view yet of bright spots first resolved as Dawn approached Ceres. The features are part of a complex structure that scientists say is strong evidence that the dwarf planet — the biggest object in the asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter — remains geologically active.
"Dawn has transformed what was so recently a few bright dots into a complex and beautiful, gleaming landscape," said Marc Rayman, Dawn's chief engineer and mission director based at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, California. "Soon, the scientific analysis will reveal the geological and chemical nature of this mysterious and mesmerizing extraterrestrial scenery."
Analysts combined two images of Occator crater, one with exposure settings to resolve the bright spots and another to add detail from the darker surrounding terrain. The image has a resolution of 450 feet, or 140 meters, about three times better than images from Dawn's last mapping campaign from a higher orbit in June.
Researchers are not sure what the bright spots are, but NASA has started an online poll for the public to cast their predictions. The options in the poll include ice, salts, rock, a volcano, or a geyser.
Dawn has located a four-mile-high pyramid-shaped mountain on another part of Ceres. Bright streaks along the flank of the peak have also caught the attention of scientists looking for exposed ice deposits.
Dawn spotted this conical mountain in Ceres' southern hemisphere. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/UCLA/MPS/DLR/IDA
Launched in September 2007, Dawn first visited the giant asteroid Vesta, then spiraled toward Ceres powered by an ultra-efficient ion propulsion system. The xenon-fueled engines allowed Dawn to become the first spacecraft to orbit two celestial bodies.
Dawn arrived in its current 915-mile-high orbit around Ceres in August, and mission planners will begin moving the craft closer to the dwarf planet in October. It takes about 19 hours for Dawn to complete one lap around Ceres in its current orbit, and scientists will use the two-month campaign to take pictures of the frozen body's surface at different angles to build up a 3D terrain map and stereo image catalog.
The mission's final orbit will be about 233 miles (375 kilometers) from Ceres, allowing highly-accurate measurements of its gravity field and surface composition.

© 2015 Spaceflight Now Inc.

By William Harwood CBS News September 9, 2015, 6:59 PM
Bright spots on dwarf planet Ceres seen in greater detail
An oblique view of Occator crater on the dwarf planet Ceres where bight features have captured the attention of planetary scientists. This image combines a short exposure showing details in the bright spots and a longer exposure to show the darker surrounding terrain. NASA

Last Updated Sep 9, 2015 9:55 PM EDT
Intriguing bright spots in a crater on the dwarf planet Ceres, the largest body in the asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter, are coming into sharper focus as NASA's Dawn spacecraft studies the world from a 915-mile-high mapping orbit. It will descend to an altitude of just 230 miles or so later this year.
The bright spots were first detected by Dawn's instruments during its approach to Ceres, prompting widespread speculation about possible ice or salt deposits, volcanic eruptions of some sort, icy geysers or impacts that either deposited material of exposed a layer of younger, brighter material below the surface.
Intriguing bright spots on the surface of the dwarf planet Ceres are coming into sharper focus as NASA's Dawn spacecraft studies the world from a high-altitude mapping orbit 915 miles up. The spacecraft is expected to descend to an altitude of just 230 miles or so later this year.
NASA
The latest images from Dawn reveal surface features as small as 450 feet across. The two bright spots are now resolved into one very bright area near the center of a crater known as Occator with about eight smaller concentrations to one side surrounding an area where the deposits appear more spread out.
Researchers with the Dawn project have not yet weighed in on what the bright material might be or how it got there.
"Although our data are now of higher resolution, we're still missing key pieces of information that we really need to know the whole picture," Carol Raymond, the Dawn deputy principal investigator, told CBS News.
"Essentially, the important information we're missing is the detailed chemistry of these deposits. We won't know that until we complete the spectral mapping and have fully analyzed those data. Then, as we get much closer to the surface, we'll be able to better resolve at the level of these individual deposits and assess whether these bright materials are all the same or are there different flavors of the constituents?"
The bright spots were unresolved and over exposed in early images take by the Dawn spacecraft during its approach to Ceres.
NASA
Dawn arrived at Ceres on March 6 and has been slowly spiraling in to lower and lower altitudes. It reached the intended high-altitude mapping orbit, or HAMO, in early August and in December, the spacecraft is expected to drop down to a low-altitude mapping orbit just 230 miles above the surface of the dwarf planet.
"The surface of Ceres is really an enigma," Raymond said. "It's not like you look at that and say oh yeah, I saw that on the moon or on (Saturn's moon) Dione, so I know what that is. Ceres, as predicted, is a unique body. So it's kind of hard to take some of the initial observations and really understand the bigger picture."
She said Dawn's ever sharper pictures are like "peeling an onion."
"And the thing is, each time you get a layer off ... you're seeing more things that you can't explain. That's really the message here. This is really turning into a journey of discovery on so many levels."As for the bright spots: "We're debating origins quite hotly within the team, and we don't have answers yet," Raymond said.
The Dawn spacecraft is expected to map the entire surface of Ceres six times during its current orbit, allowing researchers to assemble stereo views of surface features and 3D maps. The Planetary Society posted a gallery of 3D images Wednesday.
The Dawn mission is expected to continue through June 2016.
© 2015 CBS Interactive Inc. All Rights Reserved.