JavaScript is required
JPL Logo
Image

Dawn Survey Orbit Image 50

Aug. 19, 2015
This image of Ceres, taken by NASA's Dawn spacecraft, features several craters with bright material within and around them. The image is centered on terrain near the equator of Ceres and faces southeast.

This image of Ceres, taken by NASA's Dawn spacecraft, features several craters with bright material within and around them. The image is centered on terrain near the equator of Ceres and faces southeast.

The large crater at top, just right of center, is named Nawish for the guardian of the field of the Acoma people. The 50-mile- (80-kilometer-) wide crater's southern rim is thrown into sharp relief by shadows.

The view was acquired from an altitude of 2,700 miles (4,400 kilometers). The image, with a resolution of 1,400 feet (410 meters) per pixel, was taken on June 9, 2015.

Dawn's mission is managed by JPL for NASA's Science Mission Directorate in Washington. Dawn is a project of the directorate's Discovery Program, managed by NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama. UCLA is responsible for overall Dawn mission science. Orbital ATK, Inc., in Dulles, Virginia, designed and built the spacecraft. The German Aerospace Center, the Max Planck Institute for Solar System Research, the Italian Space Agency and the Italian National Astrophysical Institute are international partners on the mission team. For a complete list of acknowledgments, see http://dawn.jpl.nasa.gov/mission.

For more information about the Dawn mission, visit http://dawn.jpl.nasa.gov.

Keep Exploring