Dawn spacecraft tagged posts

Ion thrusters are being designed for a wide variety of missions – from keeping communications satellites in the proper position to propelling spacecraft throughout our solar system. But, what exactly is ion propulsion and how does an ion thruster work?

~Regular Rocket Engines: You heat it up a gas, or put it under pressure, and you push it out of the rocket nozzle, and the action of the gas going out of the nozzle causes a reaction that pushes the spacecraft in the other direction.
~Ion Engines: Xenon gas gets a little electric charge, then they’re called ions, and we use a big voltage to accelerate the xenon ions through this metal grid and we shoot them out of the engine at up to 90,000 miles per hour.

Something interesting about ion engines is that it pushes on the spacecraft as h...

Kupalo Crater from LAMO. Credit: NASA/JPL

Features on dwarf planet Ceres that piqued the interest of scientists throughout 2015 stand out in exquisite detail in the latest images from NASA’s Dawn spacecraft, which recently reached its lowest-ever altitude at Ceres. Dawn took new images near its current altitude of 240 miles from Ceres, between Dec. 19 and 23, 2015.

Kupalo Crater, one of the youngest craters on Ceres, shows off many fascinating attributes at the high image resolution of 120 feet per pixel. The crater has bright material exposed on its rim, which could be salts, and its flat floor likely formed from impact melt and debris. Researchers will be looking closely at whether this material is related to the “bright spots” of Occator Crater...

This representation of Ceres’ Occator Crater in false colors shows differences in the surface composition. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/UCLA/MPS/DLR/IDA

2 new studies from NASA’s Dawn spacecraft show insights about mysterious bright features found all over the dwarf planet’s surface. In one study, scientists identify this bright material as a kind of salt. The 2nd study suggests the detection of ammonia-rich clays, raising questions about how Ceres formed.

Ceres has more than 130 bright areas, and most of them are associated with impact craters. The bright material is consistent with a type of magnesium sulfate, hexahydrite.
Nathues and colleagues, using images from Dawn’s framing camera, suggest these salt-rich areas were left behind when water-ice sublimated in the past...