Now Appearing at a Dwarf Planet Near You: NASA's Dawn Mission to the Asteroid Belt

April 8, 2015
Dr. Marc Rayman (JPL)

Dr. Rayman, the Mission Director for the Dawn exploration of Vesta and Ceres, explains the unusual mission (the first to orbit two different bodies in the solar system), what it found at Vesta, and what it is going to do when it gets to Ceres, the largest asteroid and the first dwarf planet discovered. He also gives a behind-the-scenes tour of the Dawn launch and the ion propulsion that allows it to visit multiple targets.

[niccoarcadia]

Already 4 years old, still cutting edge presentation! Great to watch during Hurricane Doria keeping me inside...

[zapfanzapfan]

Very good presentation! I have seen the presentation itself before but there is always something new and the questions from the audience are of course always different. Thank you!

[justinchipman]

I love to watch these things. This is one positive guy and I love and share his wonder. Thanks.

[julieritt]

Now that we're (hopefully) coming closer to understanding those lights on Ceres, I found this lecture particularly informative. It was fascinating, and I enjoyed it thoroughly. Thank you for sharing it, and to the anonymous donor who made it possible!

[CyberSystemOverload]

Thank you for uploading these amazing lectures. Im addicted to them and soak in every word. Thanks to anon donor for making recording these lectures possible.

[Passacaglia]

This gentleman is such an engaging speaker!

[KeymoEmbryo]

I'm 5 minutes into this and already drooling, awesome stuff.
watch in in its entirety later on tonight 4 sure

[ZeedijkMike]

Very good and informative lecture.
Thanks a bunch

[udmh]

Thank you for your always informative lectures.

[MHowitzer]

Thank you for shring these videos. Found your channel two weeks ago and watched several lecture videos with great pleasure. One purely scientific problem bothers me: why scientific channel features videos in 480? well I see 720 on this one... but you'd expect 1080x60 or 4k from an official scientific videos source ) maybe it's stereotyping - but I suppose science should feature on-the-edge-of-technology quality of videos... ) Anyways, thanks for great lectures! Keep it up!

[interdictr]

Thanks for these always great lectures. Keep it up!

[dragosCJ]

It appears counter intuitive to me how small rocks glue together in space becoming chunks of solid rock, then asteroids and finally planets. I try to picture the phenomena but the hole process is beyond my comprehension.

[bunya]

Until now, I was unaware that the state of California was floating in space. Thank you for this confirmation. (15:15)

[sylviarogier]

Great presentation. I had no idea about this mission.

[roblewis]

That was enjoyable in informative to watch.

[robertbolino]

I'm Between Lost and Found! I was in the belief that Electricity could be found every were in Space?

[kevincarrigan]

Very cool to see Ion Drive being put to use by us humans, in the 'real' world. I had not heard that this tech was in use 2 decades ago. Wonder how much it has revolutionized proceeding missions, & if it has replaced chemical rockets for interplanetary & Interstellar travel. Next hurdle: replace chem rockets ( & their inherent danger) for launches (achieving escape velocity) w/ space elevators. or the like ?

[jari]

Nice best presentator this week for me . ( juli 2009 )

[bothewolf]

Cool lecture, but it is really laughable we hear fan-boy references to Star Trek and Star Wars from nearly all of these cats. WE GET IT....you like those things and they helped inspire you to do what you GET IT....quit fan-boying, please.