[X] My Assistant

[Paolo]

no one seems to have noticed this
http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/abstract/326/5950/275

[TheAnt]

Why cant we just go an even lower descent on Ceres. Or are we not calibrated for that?

A new target does not make a lot of sense imo, it wont be anything bigger than a few football fields unless there is something i am missing

It's not calibration of instruments, we would get even higher resolution for the neutron measurements from GRaND for example. But that bad flywheel which have to be compensated by Dawn using fuel to aim at the surface then to realign itself to send data back to Earth.
The craft would use up the remaining fuel in such an orbit. And as already pointed out, that's now something that can be allowed to happen.

Dawn have to be put in a safe orbit that will not pose any risk of collision in the foreseeable future at least.
Pallas would be the grand price on one already excellent mission, since that small world appear to be an eroded proto planet.
And we know that they did at least look into the possibility of such a flyby earlier. Pallas will pass trough the plane of the ecliptic in just a few years, it might be the reason for the wish to approve a mission extension soon.

Though I agree with Nprev, this appear to be a means to get a little more of the spacecraft that by necessity will have to do a final flight anyway.
Regardless of object it won't be anything but a flyby, but it's good enough in my book, even though it might not be Pallas.
So if not, lets hope they have identified something with odd properties, carbonates or minerals or something else that deserves a closer look where even just images might give us an insight.