The NASA Dawn spacecraft approaches the dwarf planet Ceres – El Colombiano

The asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter’s largest celestial body on Friday welcomed its first visitors.

The Dawn spacecraft NASA planned to enter orbit around Ceres to make the first exploration of a dwarf planet. Unlike other entries in orbit requiring ship propellers into action to reduce speed, in this case the final steps will be simpler, and will be developed gradually and automatically.

Dawn will not be in contact with Earth when the encounter, occurs so that the drivers do not receive confirmation that all went well until several hours later.

“I really dramatic explore this exotic alien world,” the head of the mission, Marc Rayman, an engineer at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory for NASA, which manages the mission said 473 million dollars.

Once surrounds Ceres, Dawn will spend the next 16 months taking pictures of its icy surface to determine if active.

Ceres is the last stop for the probe, launched in 2007 on a trip to the main asteroid belt. The area is dotted with rocky debris that led to the formation of the Sun and planets makes about 4,500 million years.

Along the way, Dawn spent a year at Vesta, an asteroid the size of Arizona, where It took amazing pictures of the rugged surface before heading to Ceres, which has the approximate dimensions of Texas.

This trip was made possible by propulsion engines Dawn ions, that provide a gentle but constant acceleration and are more efficient than conventional propellants.

The probe has sent enigmatic images of Ceres before arriving, where two bright areas appear inside a crater that could correspond to concentrations ice or salt.

Scientists hope to get a clearer picture when the ship approaches the surface to study whether steam clouds have been detected in the past continue to rise.

Dwarf planets have recently become the subject of several investigations.

It is expected that another Nasa spacecraft, New Horizons, Pluto arrives this summer, was demoted to dwarf planet.

Dawn came close to not leave the inner region of the solar system. The mission suffered cancellations related to finance and launch delays before receiving the green light.