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Ceres, a dwarf planet, appears as a gray, cratered crescent, as the spacecraft that took this image was on the planet's night side. Only the bottom of the planet is visible, with the rest indistinguishable from the darkness of space.
NASA/JPL-Caltech/UCLA/MPS/DLR/IDA

NASA’s Dawn spacecraft took this image of Ceres’ south polar region on May 17, 2017. Launched on Sept. 27, 2007, Dawn was NASA’s first truly interplanetary spaceship. The mission featured extended stays at two extraterrestrial bodies:  giant asteroid Vesta and dwarf planet Ceres, both in the debris-strewn main asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter.

The spacecraft’s name was meant to present a simple view of the mission’s purpose: to provide information on the dawn of the solar system. The three principal scientific drivers for the mission were to capture the earliest moments in the origin of the solar system, determine the nature of the building blocks from which the terrestrial planets formed, and contrast the formation and evolution of two small planets that followed very different evolutionary paths.

Dawn completed the first order exploration of the inner solar system, addressed NASA’s goal of understanding the origin and evolution of the solar system, and complemented investigations of Mercury, Earth, and Mars. Dawn’s mission ended on Nov. 1, 2018, after two extended missions.

Follow Dawn’s journey from Earth to deep space through the words of mission director and chief engineer, Dr. Marc Rayman.

Image credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/UCLA/MPS/DLR/IDA

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