PIA19571: VIR Image of Ceres, May 2015


VIR Image of Ceres, May 2015

Caption:

Images from Dawn's visible and infrared mapping spectrometer (VIR) show a portion of Ceres' cratered northern hemisphere, taken on May 16, 2015. From top to bottom, the views include a black-and-white image, a true-color view and a temperature image. The true-color view contains reddish dots that are image artifacts, which are not part of Ceres' surface.

These images were taken at a distance of 4,500 miles (7,300 kilometers) from Ceres. They have a resolution of 1.1 miles (1.8 kilometers) per pixel.

The temperature image is derived from data in the infrared light range. The lightest areas are the hottest and the darkest are the coolest.

Background Info:

Dawn's mission is managed by JPL for NASA's Science Mission Directorate in Washington. Dawn is a project of the directorate's Discovery Program, managed by NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama. The University of California, Los Angeles, is responsible for overall Dawn mission science. Orbital ATK, Inc., in Dulles, Virginia, designed and built the spacecraft. The German Aerospace Center, the Max Planck Institute for Solar System Research, the Italian Space Agency and the Italian National Astrophysical Institute are international partners on the mission team. For a complete list of acknowledgments, see http://dawn.jpl.nasa.gov/mission .

For more information about the Dawn mission, visit http://dawn.jpl.nasa.gov .

Cataloging Keywords:

Name Value Additional Values
Target 1 Ceres
System Main Belt
Target Type Dwarf Planet Asteroid
Mission Dawn
Instrument Host Dawn
Host Type Orbiter
Instrument Visible and Infrared Spectrometer (VIR)
Detector
Extra Keywords Color, Crater, Infrared
Acquisition Date
Release Date 2015-06-10
Date in Caption 2015-05-16
Image Credit NASA/JPL-Caltech/UCLA/ASI/INAF
Source photojournal.jpl.nasa.gov/catalog/PIA19571
Identifier PIA19571