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Say Hello To A New Dawn!
Dawn is a new NASA spacecraft that will soon begin an exciting 3 billion mile journey to study asteroids. Dawn's mission will take ten years in space during which time it will orbit the asteroid Vesta and the dwarf planet Ceres. Scientists hope the mission will help us learn how the solar system was formed.
Vesta is a dry rock, and Ceres has water. The idea is to find out how each evolved so differently since the beginning of the solar system.
Asteroids are huge rocks that orbit the sun, just like the Earth and other planets. Many of them orbit in the so-called "asteroid belt" between Mars and Jupiter. An asteroid can be the size of a house, or even much bigger. Vesta is 330 miles in diameter. It was discovered in 1807.
Ceres, once considered an asteroid, is now called a dwarf planet, which means it's bigger than an asteroid. It was discovered 1801. It's 565 miles across, and some scientists think it might have more fresh water on it than all of planet Earth.
The tiny Dawn spacecraft is 5.4 four feet long and 4.2 feet wide. It has two solar panels on huge wings and will get a lot of power from the sun. This will be the first mission that puts a spacecraft to orbit two different objects. Good luck, Dawn!
I'm Adelbert and that's what happened in Science this week!
Do you want to learn more? Let's play just the facts.
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