NASA have released the closest images it's ever captured on the dwarf planet Ceres.
The Dawn spacecraft, the one orbiting the planet, spiraled down to 915 miles away from its surface before snapping pictures of its surface features, such as craters and a strange conical mountain that NASA claims to stretch four miles high, which would make it the second largest on Earth, after Mt. Everest.
In a statement released on Tuesday, Dawn's chief engineer and mission director, Marc Rayman, said "the spacecraft's view is now three times as sharp as in its previous mapping orbit, revealing exciting new details of this intriguing dwarf planet".
These new images haven't told us anything new about the reflective patches photographed by Dawn in craters on Ceres. They have, however, shown us some bright streaks on the side of the mountain.
Dawn's aim is to map the entire surface of Ceres, which the second largest dwarf planet after Pluto, and the biggest object lying between Jupiter and Mars. The spacecraft will map the surface six times in total in the next two months, before orbiting down to 230 above ground level in October, when it will carry out research on its gravity.
Via Mashable