Bad Astronomy -
22 Mar 2015 13:30
I've been getting some emails and tweets asking why, if the Dawn spacecraft entered orbit around Ceres on Mar. 6, haven't we seen any new close-up pictures for nearly three weeks? The answer is not that NASA is covering up alien bases or Obama's birth certificate or any other such nonsense. It's actually due to gravity and chemistry. Dawn doesn't use conventional chemical rocket thrusters. While these can provide a lot of oomph, the fuel is heavy, which means you need to carry more fuel to carry...
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