25-pixel Ceres photos to be released on January 20th

The picture for navigation that Dawn took on the 13th (or around the 13th) is going to be released very soon. I'm exceptionally glad to see that the time this time around has announced the release date ahead of time instead of just making us wait as was the case with the Vesta approach.

Dawn is also a little more hobbled this time around (but still okay) so navigation photos are taking place every two weeks or so instead of weekly.

Dawn is taking an image of #Ceres this week, it'll be posted on the 20th, @oker59, #notyetbetterthanhubble

— NASA's Dawn Mission (@NASA_Dawn) 14 Janvier 2015

In the meantime we also have some news on Ceres from ground-based observations, a study suggesting that there is a lot of short-term variability of water ice on the surface. It was released a month ago, about the last time such a study would be useful since we are now right on the verge of being able to confirm or deny this.

Dawn is now closer to Ceres than our moon is to us.