the dawn mission

This isn’t what I was looking for but I’m glad I found it just the same.  From Wikipedia;

The mission’s goal is to characterise the conditions and processes of the solar system‘s earliest epoch by investigating in detail two of the largest protoplanets remaining intact since their formation. Ceres and Vesta have many contrasting characteristics that are thought to have resulted from them forming in two different regions of the early solar system; Ceres is theorized to have experienced a "cool and wet" formation that may have left it with subsurface water, and Vesta is theorised to have experienced a "hot and dry" formation that resulted in a differentiated interior and surface vulcanism.

Using a framing camera, (along with two redundant cameras)[14], a visual and infared spectrometer, and a Gamma Ray and Neutron Spectrometer, [15] Dawn will take pictures and measure the chemical composition of Ceres and Vesta.[16]

To cruise from Earth to its targets it will travel in a long outward spiral. The current estimated chronology is as follows:[17]

Planned flight trajectory

An extended mission in which Dawn explores other asteroids after Ceres is also possible.


Artist’s concept of Dawn with Vesta (left) & Ceres (right) the proximity of Vesta to Ceres is artistic licence

 

I’m quite sure this mission is named after me.  Perhaps my husband suggested it and is now disappointed that I’m not actually on the mission.

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