US Science Probe Nears Unexplored Dwarf Planet

A NASA science satellite on Friday will wrap up a seven-and-a-half-year journey to Ceres, an unexplored dwarf planet in the main asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter, scientists said on Monday. The Dawn spacecraft visited the asteroid Vesta before firing its electric ion engine to continue on to Ceres, a round, 600-mile-wide (970 km-wide) mini-planet that is the largest body in the asteroid belt. Earth's moon, by comparison, is about 2,160 miles (3,480 km) in diameter. The...

© La Voix de l'Amérique - lundi 2 mars 2015