14 DAY TRIAL // About a month and a half ago, on March 6, NASA's Dawn probe made history when it became the first spacecraft ever to reach a dwarf planet and successfully place itself in its orbit.
The spacecraft is once again grabbing headlines these days, this time for having delivered the clearest view ever of its target dwarf planet's north pole.
Word has it the space probe snapped the images scientists used to put together the animation revealing Ceres' north pole from a distance of about 21,000 miles (33,000 kilometers).
Hence the fact that, contrary to what some probably expect, this highest-resolution view of Ceres to date isn't exactly a bonanza of landscapes.
Phys Org tells us that, up until May 9, NASA's Dawn spacecraft will continue to orbit dwarf planet Ceres from afar and will not get closer than 8,400 miles (13,500 kilometers) to it.
Once it is done mapping its target's surface and snapping pictures of the geological features observable on this dwarf planet, the probe will move closer to Ceres.
In case anyone was wondering, NASA's Dawn probe left Earth in September 2007 and traveled about 3.1 billion miles (4.9 billion kilometers) to reach the dwarf planet it is now orbiting.
While en route to Ceres, the spacecraft took some 14 months off its primary mission to orbit and study a giant asteroid by the name Vesta.
