NASA Takes Viewers on a 'Flight' Over Dwarf Planet Ceres
NASA's Dawn probe will continue studying Ceres until June.
— -- A new NASA animation is taking viewers on a simulated flight over dwarf planet Ceres showing off the surface features of the icy world.
The movie is based on images taken by the Dawn spacecraft, which has been studying Ceres since March of last year. Several features stick out on the flight over Ceres, including the Occator crater, and the mountain Ahuna Mons, which has a conical shape.
Ceres is nearly 600 miles in diameter, and about 25 percent of its mass is believed to be ice. NASA's Dawn mission has been orbiting Ceres since March and will continue studying the dwarf planet through June 2016.
Ceres is the largest object in the asteroid belt, which lies between the orbits of Mars and Jupiter.