Dawn LAMO Image 36

• Click the image above for a larger view
• Full-Res JPEG (1024 x 1024) (146.9 kB)
• Full-Res TIFF (1024 x 1024) (965.4 kB)

Caption:

This view from NASA's Dawn spacecraft shows part of the 25-mile wide (41-kilometer wide) crater named Sekhet on Ceres. Prominent shadows within the crater highlight Sekhet's central peak and mounds of material that have slumped downward from its walls. Compacted material forms spurs along the upper part of the crater wall. The rim of Sekhet shows a kink in its shape (at top right), possibly indicating a variation in the surface material at that location.

A smaller crater at upper left is surrounded by a smooth plain, which probably resulted from seismic shaking during the impact that created it.

The image is centered at approximately 67.3 degrees south latitude, 251.5 degrees east longitude. Dawn captured the scene on Jan. 6, 2016, from its low-altitude mapping orbit (LAMO), at an altitude of 241 miles (388 kilometers) above Ceres. The image resolution is 118 feet (36 meters) per pixel.

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 acknowledgments, see http://dawn.jpl.nasa.gov/mission .

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

Cataloging Keywords: