NASA's Dawn probe has become the first ever spacecraft to orbit a dwarf planet. The space agency confirmed that the probe was around 38,000 miles from Ceres when it was captured by the dwarf planet's orbit. The probe will now begin slowly spiraling closer to Ceres' surface, taking increasingly detailed images as the months go by. Dawn's journey to the dwarf planet has taken seven and a half years (including a 14-month survey of Vesta, the second largest object in the asteroid belt), with the probe traveling some 3.1 billion miles or 4.9 billion kilometers to get there.
via The Verge - All Posts http://ift.tt/1EuQ2eG
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