NASA's Dawn spacecraft got a close-up shot of the dwarf planet Ceres.
The stunning image is the clearest photograph taken of the mysterious object to date, NASA reported.
The revealing image was taken at a resolution of 8.5 miles per pixel. Once the spacecraft falls into orbit around the dwarf planet it will be able to get even more detailed shots of the planet.
"Dawn's goal is to characterize the conditions and processes of its earliest history by investigating in detail two of the largest protoplanets remaining intact since their formation. Ceres and Vesta reside in the main asteroid belt, the extensive region between Mars and Jupiter, along with many other smaller bodies. Each followed a very different evolutionary path, constrained by the diversity of processes that operated during the first few million years of solar system evolution. When Dawn visits Ceres and Vesta, the spacecraft steps us back in solar system time," NASA stated.
Ceres has a diameter of only 590 miles and is the largest object in the main asteroid belt located between Mars and Jupiter. The Dawn spacecraft is set to actually arrive at its target orbit around the planet in March of 2015. The spacecraft is now twice as close to Ceres as the moon is to Earth, and is gradually getting even closer.
"Dawn's mission to Vesta and Ceres is managed by the Jet Propulsion Laboratory for NASA's Science Mission Directorate in Washington. Dawn is a project of the directorate's Discovery Program, managed by NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama. UCLA is responsible for overall Dawn mission science. Orbital Sciences Corp. of Dulles, Virginia, designed and built the spacecraft," NASA stated.
