09.12.2015 - Occator Crater in Perspektive (PIA20179)

An image of Occator Crater draped over a digital terrain model provides a 3-D-like perspective view of the impact structure. Several bright areas can be seen in this crater. The inner part of the crater forms a type of "crater within a crater" measuring about 6 miles (10 kilometers) in diameter and 0.3 miles (0.5 miles) in depth, and contains the brightest material on all of Ceres. Occator measures about 60 miles (90 kilometers) wide.

With its sharp rim and walls, and abundant terraces and landslide deposits, Occator appears to be among the youngest features on Ceres. Dawn mission scientists estimate its age to be about 78 million years old.

The Dawn mission to Vesta and Ceres is managed by NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, a division of the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena, for NASA’s Science Mission Directorate, Washington D.C. UCLA is responsible for overall Dawn mission science.

The Dawn framing cameras have been developed and built under the leadership of the Max Planck Institute for Solar System Research, Katlenburg-Lindau, Germany, with significant contributions by DLR German Aerospace Center, Institute of Planetary Research, Berlin, and in coordination with the Institute of Computer and Communication Network Engineering, Braunschweig. The framing camera project is funded by the Max Planck Society, DLR, and NASA/JPL.