28. Dawn the probe

Dawn was the probe that went to both Vesta and Ceres - small asteroid-like bodies in the solar system. Dawn made many interesting finds on both of these asteroid bodies in the asteroid belt. Stick around if you want to find out more.

Image from picryl.com

Dawn was an amazing probe! It went to see the asteroid belt, but not to look at any old asteroid, but to look at Ceres and Vesta! Vesta is a protoplanet that is the largest one in the asteroid belt. Ceres is the largest asteroid and it is so large it is classified as a dwarf planet.

Dawn had to be light to get into space and fuel is heavy and expensive, so scientists thought of another way to power it. They thought of a way to only need a little bit of fuel and to make that fuel last for many years.

Dawn's "fuel" was made by converting atoms into a blue flash like a comet - see above. This pushes the spacecraft forward and towards it's target. This way has fuel to power it. that means they do have a limit for fuel.

Dawn is the size of a tractor trailer when it's solar panels are extended. that means it is 65 feet long. That is small for a spacecraft! By comparison, the biggest probe is the one that went to Saturn called Cassini-Huygens. It was the size of a school bus before it was deliberately crashed into Saturn so there wouldn't be human pollution on the moons of Saturn.

The weight of Dawn was an amazing 747.1 kilograms which is 1,647.1 pounds!!!That is the weight of an elephant. That is heavy because that is the weight of an empty carrier truck! That is nothing compared to Saturn 5 though, the rocket that took people to the moon. It was the weight of 40 elephants! All that was left at the end of the mission was 14 kilograms (31 pounds).

This is a little bit what Vesta looks like. in fast motion though!!

Dawn has 3 engines or thrusters. Each are about 8 kilograms. The engines make up a system called the Ion Propulsion system (IPS). The engines were 13 inches long (33 centimeters) each. That is not even a meter!

Dawn is sadly not running anymore. It was launched on 2014 and crashed in 2016. It got into Ceres orbit in 2015 and it was the first probe to study a dwarf planet, 4 months before the new horizons was scheduled to arrive at pluto and to be the first probe to study a dwarf planet.

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Until next time, give me space

Henry