Ceres High Altitude Mapping Orbit (HAMO), Late summer through fall 2015 |
Ceres High Altitude Mapping Orbit (HAMO), Late summer through fall 2015 |
Aug 17 2015, 01:42 AM
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Member Group: Members Posts: 540 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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Aug 25 2015, 10:28 PM
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Member Group: Members Posts: 866 Joined: 15-March 05 From: Santa Cruz, CA Member No.: 196 |
yes, its all too fascinating.. it really looks like some sort of plug thrust up pingo-style, slowly covering the surface outward as it grew, with one side becoming too steep and wasting down to erase craters and reveal underlying brighter material.
Many craters appear to have been gently lifted up along with the mountain surface (green arrows) a few of those higher up the incline appear to have been elongated by slippage. Some landslide splashing out across the floor at the foot of the mountain (yellow arrows). Apparent large mass-wasting event on shadowed side perhaps was too slow to disturb its surface. hard to say whether the splash smudge at the bottom post-dates that event (red arrow). |
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