NASA's Dawn Spacecraft Goes Into Orbit Around Ceres
After a 7-1/2 year journey through the solar system, NASA's Dawn spacecraft settled into orbit Friday around the mini-planet Ceres that lies in the asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter.
Mission controllers at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif., 310 million miles away, received a signal from the spacecraft at 8:36 a.m. EST that Dawn was healthy and thrusting with its ion engine, the indicator Dawn had entered orbit as planned.
"Confirmed: I am in orbit around #Ceres," Dawn said in a Twitter message.
"Since its discovery in 1801, Ceres was known as a planet, then an asteroid and later a dwarf planet," said Marc Rayman, Dawn chief engineer and mission director at JPL. "Now, after a journey of 3.1 billion miles (4.9 billion kilometers) and 7.5 years, Dawn calls Ceres, home."
The spacecraft, trailing a beam of blue-green vapor behind it, was captured by the dwarf planet's gravity at about 4:39 a.m. EST, the mission team said.
http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/2015/03/06/ceres-dawn-spacecraft-nasa/24485279/?csp=breakingnews
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Scientific inquiry and journeys to discover new truths about the universe are very cool!