Dawn’s Latest Orbit Reveals Dramatic New Views of Occator Crater
nasa.gov
nasa.gov
As someone with not much planetary science exposure, what is the explanation why these other smaller bodies in the solar system like Ceres seem to have more interesting variation and more carbon, possible volatiles, than the moon?
Unless there's been some new developments, New Horizons had its Pluto flyby three years ago :)
Current theory is that the moon was the result of a collision with earth. It is similar to earth because it was once part of earth. It formed under similar conditions to earth, its differences largely do to the reduced gravity and lack of plate tectonics. Planets far away form under different conditions and are therefore more different than the moon.
It's real but it's slooooow. I mean yea, they do get much higher velocities but it takes a very long time( and thus are incapable of launching from a gravity well).
However the Wiki article you linked to said the FOV of the framing camera is 5.5° x 5.5°.
So at 21 miles, the photos would be about (5.5°/360° ⋅ 2𝛑 ⋅ 21 miles) = 2.0 miles across.