Dawn: first in a Ceres
The unmanned NASA spacecraft Dawn transmits a series of pictures of Ceres, the minor planet which is the largest known object in the main asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter, back to Earth, representing the best view yet of an object which had been seen as little more than a point of light since its discovery in 1801. From a distance of only 147,000 miles, Dawn is able to see more detail on Ceres than the best Hubble Space Telescope images of the same body. Dawn will arrive at Ceres and use its ion propulsion system to enter its orbit in March 2015.