Dawn approaches Ceres, From opnav images to first orbit |
Dawn approaches Ceres, From opnav images to first orbit |
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Solar System Cartographer ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() Group: Members Posts: 10194 Joined: 5-April 05 From: Canada Member No.: 227 ![]() |
On Tuesday (two days from now, for visitors from the future), the first optical navigation image will be taken... hopefully we'll have it in our hands soon after that. So it's time for a new topic. Over the next few months we'll have progressively closer images and full orbit characterization sequences, no doubt including multispectral image sets.
A new world... This is a bit of reprocessing I have been doing with the Hubble images from a few years ago. Phil -------------------- ... because the Solar System ain't gonna map itself.
Also to be found posting similar content on https://mastodon.social/@PhilStooke Maps for download (free PD: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/comm...Cartography.pdf NOTE: everything created by me which I post on UMSF is considered to be in the public domain (NOT CC, public domain) |
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#2
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![]() Senior Member ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() Group: Members Posts: 3419 Joined: 9-February 04 From: Minneapolis, MN, USA Member No.: 15 ![]() |
What I guess I would have expected of a dwarf planet to look like would be, um, well -- a little more well-rounded. The overall impression I get from the opnavs is of a lumpy body that is out-of-round in significant places.
It doesn't give the same impression of smooth roundness that, say, Enceladus does (as a body of very similar size). I suppose I was expecting something a little more like that. Instead, it seems to have corners and gouges and big uplifted sections and long connected depressions. Complex and fascinating, but less overall rounded than I expected. -------------------- “The trouble ain't that there is too many fools, but that the lightning ain't distributed right.” -Mark Twain
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#3
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Member ![]() ![]() ![]() Group: Members Posts: 200 Joined: 20-November 05 From: Mare Desiderii Member No.: 563 ![]() |
It doesn't give the same impression of smooth roundness that, say, Enceladus does (as a body of very similar size). Ceres has about twice the radius of Enceladus (see diagram). I think it's probably Enceladus that's anomalous in its size class for being so round. |
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#4
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Junior Member ![]() ![]() Group: Members Posts: 78 Joined: 16-October 12 From: Pennsylvania Member No.: 6711 ![]() |
Ceres has about twice the radius of Enceladus (see diagram). I think it's probably Enceladus that's anomalous in its size class for being so round. I was going to post something like that but you beat me. Good job. Most objects about Ceres size are heavily cratered and without any neighbors Ceres can't resurface without a giant impact. And if there isn't a trick of the light and Ceres dichotomy is real, than that just reminds me of Mars, whose hemispheres are significantly from each other for reasons not yet well understood. And I think we can all agree that Mars is unambiguously a planet. |
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