Tag Archives: dawn

Not faster than light, but still incredible

Posted on April 29, 2015 by lindenmuthadam

The use of ion thrusters (literally using ionized electrons and protons as a source of thrust!) in space has been floated around as a method for interstellar propulsion in science fiction for decades, yet was not a reality until the turn of the millennium. Scientists at the NASA Glenn Research Center in Cleveland, Ohio developed […] Continue reading →

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Explore Vesta with Vesta Trek

Posted on March 31, 2015 by robbyks

Today, NASA released Vesta Trek, a free web-based application that provides a detailed visualization of Vesta, one of the largest asteroids in the Solar System. This was made possible by NASA’s Dawn spacecraft, which studied Vesta from July 2011 to September 2012. This application includes interactive maps, the ability to print Vesta in a 3-D printer, […] Continue reading →

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NASA’s Dawn Spacecraft Orbits Ceres

Posted on March 16, 2015 by conorastr201

That’s no moon! Just this past week, the Dawn spacecraft entered orbit around Ceres, the largest object in the asteroid belt. The dward planet is one of the oldest planetary object left in our solar system, and as such could provide valuable information about the early formation of the planets; it is an in-between step, a […] Continue reading →

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Dawn’s New Home

Posted on March 10, 2015 by pgolemanska

If we want to understand the universe, we need to understand our Solar System first. And NASA is well underway to exploring every bit of our solar neighborhood. Just a couple of days ago the spacecraft Dawn send a message to NASA that it was “healthy and thrusting with its ion engine” in an orbit […] Continue reading →

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