PIA21420: Ernutet Crater and Organic Material Detections


Ernutet Crater and Organic Material Detections

Caption:

This enhanced color composite image from Dawn's visible and infrared mapping spectrometer shows the area around Ernutet Crater on Ceres. The instrument detected the evidence of organic materials in this area, as reported in a 2017 study in the journal Science . In this view, areas that appear pink with respect to the background appear to be rich in organics, and green areas are where organic material appears to be less abundant.

Light with a wavelength of 2000 nanometers is shown in blue, 3400 nanometers is shown in green and 1700 nanometers is shown in red.

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. UCLA 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 mission participants, 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 2017-02-16
Date in Caption
Image Credit NASA/JPL-Caltech/UCLA/ASI/INAF
Source photojournal.jpl.nasa.gov/catalog/PIA21420
Identifier PIA21420