Ceres High Altitude Mapping Orbit (HAMO), Late summer through fall 2015 |
Ceres High Altitude Mapping Orbit (HAMO), Late summer through fall 2015 |
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Member ![]() ![]() ![]() Group: Members Posts: 541 Joined: 17-November 05 From: Oklahoma Member No.: 557 ![]() |
DAWN arrived in its new lower mapping orbit on August 13th. The DAWN team is preparing to resume science observation tomorrow on the 17th.
From the Current Mission Status page at the DAWN website: QUOTE August 13, 2015 - Dawn Arrives in Third Mapping Orbit
Dawn completed the maneuvering to reach its third mapping orbit and stopped ion-thrusting this afternoon. This was a little ahead of schedule because the spiral descent went so well that some of the allocated thrusting time was not needed. Since July 14, the spacecraft has reduced its orbital altitude from 2,700 miles (4,400 kilometers) to approximately 915 miles (1,470 kilometers). The orbit period has correspondingly decreased from 3.1 days to 19 hours. Dawn is scheduled to begin its new observations on the evening of Aug. 17 (PDT) and continue for more than two months. First, however, the mission control team will measure the actual orbit parameters accurately and transmit them to the spacecraft. |
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![]() Member ![]() ![]() ![]() Group: Members Posts: 555 Joined: 27-September 10 Member No.: 5458 ![]() |
Thanks for those Habukaz.
It is especially intriguing that the plateau would have a surface in similar appearance to the much lower surrounding ground, while the sides are so smooth. Even more so if it is a result of some sort of fault uplift with the lack of a large amount of distortion. It almost seems like the surface became extremely elastic when the impact occurred. Such as the case where you push on a water bed, the nearby ground was forced upward. This would require some liquid or something very near the liquid state to be heated during impact, for this to occur however. Here's a cropped and enlarged version of the area with a little more processing. Something else I hadn't noticed previously is the small debris(?) pile at the bottom of the mound near the 5:00 position. Seems to be the only one like it. The linear feature that extends above it also seems to extend away from the average slope as well. Edit: Also, here's an enlargement of the HAMO 4 image as well. ![]() (click to enlarge) Most interesting to note here is the... smudgyness of the features extending northward (or towards the top of the image) from the uppermost large crater. Deep fault line maybe? -------------------- |
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![]() Member ![]() ![]() ![]() Group: Members Posts: 423 Joined: 13-November 14 From: Norway Member No.: 7310 ![]() |
The strange feature close to a crater from Survey orbit is back, and it still looks pretty weird to me:
![]() http://photojournal.jpl.nasa.gov/catalog/PIA19881 (just like the apparent landslide, it also features in Survey images 13, 24 and 25) Something else I hadn't noticed previously is the small debris(?) pile at the bottom of the mound near the 5:00 position. Seems to be the only one like it. The linear feature that extends above it also seems to extend away from the average slope as well. Nice catch, I also see it. I think there might be smaller versions of it around, though (both the ridge (it casts a shadow) above and the 'pile' itself). -------------------- |
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