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Ceres follows an orbit between Mars and Jupiter, near the middle of the asteroid belt, with an orbital period (year) of 4.6 Earth years. [2] Compared to other planets and dwarf planets, Ceres's orbit is moderately tilted relative to that of Earth; its inclination (i) is 10.6°, compared to 7° for Mercury and 17° for Pluto.
A dwarf planet is a small planetary-mass object that is in direct orbit around the Sun, ... The dwarf planet Ceres, as imaged by NASA's Dawn spacecraft.
Dawn entered Ceres orbit on March 6, 2015, [136] four months prior to the arrival of New Horizons at Pluto. Dawn thus became the first mission to study a dwarf planet at close range. [137] [138] Dawn initially entered a polar orbit around Ceres, and continued to refine its orbit. It obtained its first full topographic map of Ceres during this ...
Dawn spacecraft view of Occator Crater on Ceres in enhanced color, this image was taken on 4 May 2015. [1] The geology of Ceres is the scientific study of the surface, crust, and interior of the dwarf planet Ceres. It seeks to understand and describe Ceres' composition, landforms, evolution, and physical properties and processes.
The number of dwarf planets in the Solar System is unknown. Estimates have run as high as 200 in the Kuiper belt [1] and over 10,000 in the region beyond. [2] However, consideration of the surprisingly low densities of many large trans-Neptunian objects, as well as spectroscopic analysis of their surfaces, suggests that the number of dwarf planets may be much lower, perhaps only nine among ...
Craters. Ceres is saturated with impact craters.Many have a central pit or bright spot. In the first batch of 17 names approved by the IAU, craters north of 20° north latitude had names beginning with A–G (with Asari being the furthest north), those between 20° north and south latitude beginning with H–R, and those further south beginning with S–Z (with Zadeni being the furthest south).
Giuseppe Piazzi, discoverer of Ceres, the largest object in the asteroid belt: Ceres was known as a planet, but later reclassified as an asteroid and from 2006 as a dwarf planet. On January 1, 1801, Giuseppe Piazzi , chairman of astronomy at the University of Palermo , Sicily, found a tiny moving object in an orbit with exactly the radius ...
The Titius–Bode law predicts planets will be present at specific distances in astronomical units, which can be compared to the observed data for the planets and two dwarf planets in the Solar System: Graphical plot of the eight planets, Pluto, and Ceres versus the first ten predicted distances.