Exploration
No space probe has visited Ceres. Radio signals from spacecraft in orbit around and on the surface of Mars have been used to estimate the mass of Ceres from its perturbations on the motion of Mars.
The Dawn spacecraft, launched by NASA in 2007, orbited asteroid 4 Vesta from 15 July 2011 until 5 September 2012 and is continuing on to Ceres. It is scheduled to arrive there in 2015, five months prior to the arrival of New Horizons at Pluto. Dawn will thus be the first mission to study a dwarf planet at close range.
Dawn's mission profile calls for it to enter orbit around Ceres at an altitude of 5,900 km. The spacecraft will reduce its orbital distance to 1,300 km after five months of study, and then down to 700 km after another five months. The spacecraft instrumentation includes a framing camera, a visual and infrared spectrometer, and a gamma-ray and neutron detector. These instruments will be used to examine the dwarf planet's shape and elemental composition.
Read more about this topic: Ceres (dwarf Planet)
Famous quotes containing the word exploration:
“For women who do not love us, as for the “disappeared”, knowing that we no longer have any hope does not prevent us form continuing to wait. We live on our guard, on watch; women whose son has gone asea on a dangerous exploration imagine at any minute, although it has long been certain that he has perished, that he will enter, miraculously saved, and healthy.”
—Marcel Proust (1871–1922)
“I call her old. She has one family
Whose claim is good to being settled here
Before the era of colonization,
And before that of exploration even.
John Smith remarked them as he coasted by....”
—Robert Frost (1874–1963)
“The future author is one who discovers that language, the exploration and manipulation of the resources of language, will serve him in winning through to his way.”
—Thornton Wilder (1897–1975)