NASA Spacecraft Approaching Dwarf Planet Ceres

[1step]

Mike Wall, writing on Space.com:

December 30, 2014 07:00am ET

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(artist's conception)

NASA's Dawn spacecraft has begun approaching Ceres ahead of a historic March arrival at the mysterious dwarf planet.

Dawn has officially entered the Ceres approach phase, after recently emerging from behind the sun relative to Earth and thus coming back into reliable communication range. The probe is now about 400,000 miles (640,000 kilometers) from Ceres and is cruising toward the 590-mile-wide (950 km) object at 450 mph (725 km/h), NASA officials said.

Dawn should enter orbit around Ceres — the largest object in the main asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter — on March 6, 2015. When that happens, the spacecraft will become the first ever to orbit two different unexplored solar system bodies. (Dawn circled the protoplanet Vesta, the asteroid belt's second-largest object, from July 2011 through September 2012.)

Mission team members, and space scientists around the world, are eager to see Ceres up close.

"Ceres is almost a complete mystery to us," Dawn principal investigator Christopher Russell, of UCLA, said in a statement. "Ceres, unlike Vesta, has no meteorites linked to it to help reveal its secrets. All we can predict with confidence is that we will be surprised."

Full article http://www.space.com/28122-dawn-spacecraft-dwarf-planet-ceres.html

Hey, I told you I was a space nerd!

[riqster]

1. Kick and rec from another.

[drm604]

2. Very cool. K&R

According to the article, it uses an ion propulsion system, without which the mission wouldn't have been possible.

[longship]

3. 2015 is going to be a great planetary science year.

There's this Dawn mission to Ceres.

Then, there's the continuing missions:
Cassini at Saturn.
Rosetta at comet 69P.
Curiosity and Pathfinder on Mars along with the orbiters, including a new one from India.

Then, there's the biggie! New Horizon flying by Pluto.

R&K

[Basic LA]

4. Ceres!

Buckle of the asteroid belt, & future center of asteroid mining operations. (OK, I went a little sci fi there.)