images

Dawn near Vesta and Ceres-Artwork

by

Nasa/JPL/Novapix

Reference

e-son35-00001

Date

2010-05-24

Artist's concept of the Dawn spacecraft with Vesta and Ceres.
Dawn, part of NASA's Discovery Program of competitively selected missions, was launched in 2007 to orbit the large asteroid Vesta and the dwarf planet Ceres. The two bodies have very different properties from each other. By observing them both with the same set of instruments, Dawn will probe the early solar system and specify the properties of each body.