Dawn

New analysis of data collected during NASA's Dawn mission has offered some compelling answers to long-standing questions about the makeup of Ceres, starting with presence of a 25-mile-deep reservoir of brine beneath the dwarf planet's surface.

After 11 years exploring the asteroid belt, NASA's Dawn mission has come to the end. The space agency confirmed that all contact has been lost with the deep space probe after it failed to make two scheduled communications with the Deep Space Network (DSN) on October 31 and November 1, 2018.

Fresh research has been published detailing the processes responsible for the creation of the enigmatic features marking the surface of the dwarf planet Ceres, including the bright spots at the famous Occator Crater, and the so-called "lonely mountain."

Two new studies have used data gathered by NASA’s Dawn mission to determine that the dwarf planet Ceres’ salty, icy crust could be the remains of an ancient global ocean – and there may still be some liquid water locked up deep beneath the surface.

​​Back in May 2015, NASA's Dawn spacecraft became the first man-made object to enter orbit around a dwarf planet. It has circled Ceres since, with NASA extending its mission not once but now twice. The latest lifeline sends the unmanned probe closer to the surface of Ceres than ever before.

​One of the weirdest features of the dwarf planet Ceres is a series of bright spots in the center of the large Occator crater. New research suggests the bright material is actually much younger than the rest of the crater and that the central dome could be the result of cryovolcanic activity.

​Organic molecules have been spotted on the dwarf planet Ceres. The discovery was made by the Dawn mission, which has previously found evidence of water ice at the planet’s poles and carbonate minerals. Together, astronomers say that Ceres now has the ingredients and favorable conditions for life.

NASA's Dawn deep-space probe has discovered ice inside the eternally shadowed craters of the polar regions of the dwarf planet Ceres, where it survives in the crater interiors thanks to the extreme cold there.

New data from NASA's Dawn spacecraft suggests that Ceres' surface is too strong to be dominated by ice.

NASA's Dawn spacecraft is set to maneuver into a higher orbit around the dwarf planet Ceres. The move to is designed to get a new perspective of the dwarf planet​​ and prolong the already successful mission.

​​NASA scientists have taken their first look at the interior of the dwarf planet Ceres, by tracking tiny alterations in the motion of the Dawn spacecraft as it continues to orbit the enigmatic planetoid.

When you're a 4.5 billion year old space rock with no atmosphere, chances are good that some major asteroids are going to smack into you. That is likely the case with dwarf planet Ceres, but its surface doesn't show any major craters. That's probably because it's been erasing the evidence