Astronomy Picture of the Day
January 30, 2016

Near the Equator of 1-Ceres (CTX Frame)
Near the Equator of 1-Ceres (CTX Frame)

Credits: NASA/JPL-Caltech/UCLA/MPS/DLR/IDA and Dr Paolo C. Fienga for the additional process. and color.

This Contextual Image (or "CTX Frame", for short) of the Dwarf Planet 1-Ceres, taken by the NASA - Dawn Spacecraft on December, 23, 2015, shows us a truly small, but highly crateredArea of 1-Ceres that is located near the Equator; the frame includes (among other things) a fascinating view of a - relatively - tiny Double Unnamed Impact Crater that is completely surrounded by bright Material (a Material that appears to be common on 1-Ceres, but whose origin, as you know, is still unknown).

The image is centered at approximately 2,5° South Latitude and 112° East Longitude. The original photo was taken during the NASA - Dawn Spacecraft's Low-Altitude Mapping Orbit (or "LAMO", for short) and from a distance of approx. 240 miles (such as about 386,2416 Km) as to the Surface, with a resolution of roughly 120 feet (such as about 36,576 meters) per pixel.


This image (which is an Original NASA - Dawn Spacecraft's b/w and NON Map-Projected frame published on the NASA - Planetary Photojournal with the ID n. PIA 20305 - DAWN LAMO Image n. 15) has been additionally processed, extra-magnified to aid the visibility of the details, contrast enhanced and sharpened, Gamma corrected and then colorized (according to an educated guess carried out by Dr Paolo C. Fienga-LXTT-IPF) in Absolute Natural Colors (such as the colors that a normal human eye would actually perceive if someone were onboard the NASA - Dawn Spacecraft and then looked ahead, towards the Surface of 1-Ceres), by using an original technique created - and, in time, dramatically improved - by the Lunar Explorer Italia Team.



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