Being at an altitude of 915 miles above the surface of Ceres, a dwarf planet in the main Asteroid Belt, NASA’s “Dawn” spacecraft made the best shots of a strange crater with mysterious bright spots on the bottom so far.
The resolution is about three times higher than the previous Dawn pictures, but scientists are still considering what these spots might be.
New images also show that in some places the rim of the crater almost vertically rises a mile above the surface. Over the next few months, Dawn will go round Ceres six times, each time at a slightly different angle, so that scientists can compose stereo and three-dimensional images.
Scientists suspect that on Ceres, which is about 590 miles in diameter, there is an underground ocean and, perhaps, somewhere under the icy surface, the water is still in a liquid state.
Before arriving at Ceres, Dawn spent 14 months exploring Vesta, the second largest object in the Asteroid Belt, located between Mars and Jupiter.
