Ceres From Dawn, Visible and Infrared Light

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Caption:

In this image, taken January 13, 2015, the Dawn spacecraft's visible and infrared mapping spectrometer (VIR) captures the dwarf planet Ceres from a distance of 238,000 miles (383,000 kilometers) in both visible and infrared light. The infrared image, right, serves as a temperature map of Ceres, where white is warmer and red is colder.

Background Info:

JPL manages the Dawn mission 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 (UCLA) is responsible for overall Dawn mission science. Orbital Sciences Corp. 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.

More information about Dawn is online at http://www.nasa.gov/dawn .

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