Dawn LAMO Image 83

Ceres' densely cratered landscape is revealed in this image taken by the framing camera aboard NASA's Dawn spacecraft. The craters show various degrees of degradation. The youngest craters have sharp rims. Extremely subdued circular features reflect remnants of older impact scars, which have become heavily degraded and covered with numerous younger and smaller craters. Clusters and chains of closely spaced, small craters are most likely secondary impacts, originating from larger craters outside of the scene shown in this image.

The view is centered at approximately 18 degrees north latitude and 335 degrees east longitude. Dawn took this image on March 20, 2016, in its low-altitude mapping orbit, at a distance of about 240 miles (385 kilometers) above the surface. The image resolution is 120 feet (35 meters) per pixel.

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.