NASA JPL
DAWN Update... It has been 24 days since the launch of the Asteroid Belt-bound spacecraft, and all seems to be going well as it continues to undergo checkouts. Dawn's ion propulsion system was successfully tested more than a week ago, and the probe’s various science instruments have recently been turned on for health checks. On Thursday, an interesting blog was posted on The Planetary Society’s website talking about time-lapse photos showing Dawn streaking into deep space. The animation consists of two 14-minute exposures, and was photographed by Bill Dillon...using a 61-centimeter telescope at Sierra Stars Observatory in California. Emily Lakdawalla, the head blogger for The Planetary Society, posted this nice little line regarding Dawn and the images: "It may just be a fuzzy blob (in the two photos)—but that fuzzy blob is a functioning robot, out in deep space, exploring places we can’t go." Dawn was 600,000 miles away from Earth at the time these pictures were taken.
Bill Dillon / Sierra Stars Observatory
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