Dantu Crater on Ceres, at top center, is featured in this image from NASA's Dawn spacecraft. Dantu, whose diameter is 77 miles (124 kilometers), has a central complex of mountain peaks. Small patches of bright material can be seen in some places along the crater walls and floor.
A small crater (4-miles, 6-kilometers wide) located around the 5 o'clock position within Dantu is called Centeotl. This crater is named for the Mexican deity of maize and agriculture.
Dawn took this image on Oct. 21, 2016, from its second extended-mission science orbit (XMO2), at a distance of about 920 miles (1,480 kilometers) above the surface. The image resolution is about 460 feet (140 meters) per pixel.
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 .
Name | Value | Additional Values |
---|---|---|
Target | 1 Ceres | |
System | Main Belt | |
Target Type | Dwarf Planet | Asteroid |
Mission | Dawn | |
Instrument Host | Dawn | |
Host Type | Orbiter | |
Instrument | Framing Camera (FC) | |
Detector | ||
Extra Keywords | Crater, Grayscale, Mountain | |
Acquisition Date | ||
Release Date | 2016-12-09 | |
Date in Caption | 2016-10-21 | |
Image Credit | NASA/JPL-Caltech/UCLA/MPS/DLR/IDA | |
Source | photojournal.jpl.nasa.gov/catalog/PIA21242 | |
Identifier | PIA21242 |