Dawn

Dawn — spacecraft, shown live in Cosmoscope, a real-time 3D map of the universe.

Powered by whisper-quiet ion engines, Dawn was the first craft ever to orbit two different worlds: the giant asteroid Vesta and the dwarf planet Ceres.

Launched
27 Sep 2007
Status
Mission ended 2018 — silent at Ceres

Seeing Dawn in real time

Cosmoscope draws Dawn on its real trajectory, from mission ephemeris rather than an artist's impression. Open the live 3D view to see where Dawn is right now, how far it has travelled from the Sun, and how long its radio signal takes to reach Earth. Scrub the timeline to replay the route that took it there.

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