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Dawn is a retired space probe that was launched by NASA in September 2007 with the mission of studying two of the three known protoplanets of the asteroid belt: Vesta and Ceres. [1] In the fulfillment of that mission—the ninth in NASA's Discovery Program — Dawn entered orbit around Vesta on July 16, 2011, and completed a 14-month survey ...
Ceres (minor-planet designation: 1 Ceres) is a dwarf planet in the middle main asteroid belt between the orbits of Mars and Jupiter. It was the first known asteroid , discovered on 1 January 1801 by Giuseppe Piazzi at Palermo Astronomical Observatory in Sicily , and announced as a new planet .
Dawn 's images led to widespread reports in the media about the bright spots, including in news sources, [22] astronomy magazines, [23] and science magazines. [24] An informal NASA poll during May offered the following ideas for the nature of the spots: [ 25 ] ice, volcanos, geysers, salt deposits, rock, or other.
The asteroid making so much news today ranks as a three, representing “a chance of collision capable of localized destruction.” Read More : NASA’s New, $4 Billion Space Telescope Will ...
A roughly 1-meter asteroid entered Earth’s atmosphere over the Philippines near Luzon Island at 12:39 p.m. ET, ... For more CNN news and newsletters create an account at CNN.com.
Asteroid 2024 YR4’s rating of 3 on the Torino Scale is the second-highest an asteroid has ever reached after the notorious Apophis briefly hit a rating of 4 many when it was first discovered.
Dawn took its first "close up" picture of Ceres in December 2014, and entered orbit in March 2015: First likely dwarf planet visited by a spacecraft, largest asteroid visited by a spacecraft 4 Vesta: 525.4: March 29, 1807: Dawn: 2011–2012: 210: 0.76: Dawn broke orbit on 5 September 2012 and headed to Ceres, where it arrived in March 2015
Asteroid 2024 YR4 has a 1.3% chance of impacting Earth in 2032, NASA reports. Astronomers all over the world are watching the asteroid, trying to narrow down its future path.