Dawn in Low Ceres Orbit

South Burlington, VT

You may not be aware of this.  The popular press has not paid much attention.  But at the moment, there is a stunning new success in science going on.

The Dawn unmanned spacecraft, has maneuvered itself into orbit around one of the biggest asteroids named Ceres.  Below is one of many close in photographs of the surface of Ceres.

In historical perspective, the landing of Apollo 11 on the moon is perhaps mankind's greatest achievements ever.  But the close up pictures of Pluto and Ceres  are nonetheless very major milestones.

By the way, en-route to Ceres, Dawn got a gravitational boost from Mars, and from another asteroid Vesta.