NASA CERES TALK

Dr. Marc Rayman, Mission Director of Dawn (the spacecraft currently circling the dwarf planet Ceres) joined Kiah & Tara Jean on air this morning to talk about those weird bright spots and possible life on Ceres. Audio is posted below!

 

 

While you’re listening, enjoy some hot facts about Ceres and the Dawn mission:

– Ceres was discovered in 1801 and used to be considered a planet. (That’s similar to Pluto, which was discovered 129 years later. It used to be considered a planet.)
– When the new category of dwarf planets was established in 2006, and everyone was so upset about Pluto being “demoted,” Ceres was included in that category too. So it was the first dwarf planet discovered, and Dawn is the first spacecraft to visit a dwarf planet.
– Ceres is the largest object between the Sun and Pluto that a spacecraft had not visited (prior to Dawn). It lives in the main asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter.
– Dawn also orbited Vesta, the second most massive object in the main belt. Vesta and Ceres are giants, and they are much more like planets than like the typical chunks of rock people think of as asteroids. Vesta has a crater more than 300 miles in diameter with a mountain more than twice the height of Mt. Everest.
– Dawn is the only spacecraft ever to orbit two extraterrestrial destinations. This mission would be not just difficult but truly impossible with conventional technology. What makes it possible is ion propulsion, a technology I first heard of in a Star Trek episode and which was an essential part of the Star Wars movies.