Sunlight on Dwarf Planet Ceres Captured by the Spacecraft Dawn

NASA spacecraft Dawn has shown a recently taken pictures of a dwarf planet Ceres wherein a bright sunlight has hit a part of it as reported by Engadget news.

It was also revealed by NASA that the Dawn spacecraft has been making progress in going near the celestial small body since its 2012 journey and after orbiting Vesta for 14 months now.  After boosting the ion thrusters around March, it has slowly got close to the proto-planet although it was still 21,000 miles away.

The spacecraft has been trying to get a clear picture of the Texas-sized planet to know more if it really harbors water on its surface.  Dawn has used its ion thrusters to reach an altitude of approximately 233 miles and settle into its orbit so it can get a clear 3D pictures and images to be able to create a vivid resolution pictured map of the planet Ceres.

Ceres might be a small world on its own although it was called an asteroid before which orbits between Mars and the biggest planet Jupiter.  It was believed by Italian Giuseppe Piazzi who discovered this planet in 1801 that it might be a planet that was missing and lies between Jupiter and Mars.

This is the first time that a spacecraft has visited a dwarf planet and this might prove successful in having distinct images of Ceres and learn more of its surface.  Dawn is the only able spacecraft that was able to have orbited two far away worlds in outer space.

The photo that was revealed was an animation taken last April 10 and shows craters which look like earth's moon.  It may not be as clear but if Dawn gets a little closer to Ceres then more pictures will be gathered.