New images of the dwarf planet Ceres from NASA's Dawn spacecraft revealed new features, such as bright spots and craters.
The stunning new images were taken Feb.12 at a distance of 52,000 miles, NASA reported.
"As we slowly approach the stage, our eyes transfixed on Ceres and her planetary dance, we find she has beguiled us but left us none the wiser," said Chris Russell, principal investigator of the Dawn mission, based at UCLA. "We expected to be surprised; we did not expect to be this puzzled."
The Dawn spacecraft is scheduled to be captured into orbit around Ceres on March 6, 2015. The mission will look into the "nature and composition" of the dwarf planet. These new images have a resolution of 4.9 miles per pixel, and there are even sharper photos on the way.
Dawn explored the asteroid Vesta for 14 months between 2011 and 2012, allowing scientists to observe its surface in detail and gain insight into its geological history. The team now hopes to compare Vesta and Ceres in order to learn more about the formation of the solar system.
"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 on Dawn's website.
