well a couple of days ago in fact in the early Friday morning (March 6), it becoming the first spacecraft ever to circle a dwarf planet, as well as the first to orbit two bodies beyond the Earth-moon system, (Dawn studied the protoplanet Vesta up close from July 2011 through September 2012.), we have mentioned Dawn before on our blog, a couple of times, but Dawn is still on the move, and will be for another six weeks, when the spacecraft reaches a position to begin making science observations, Dawn 'is working now to reshape its orbit around Ceres', Dawn mission director and chief engineer Marc Rayman, who's based at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) in Pasadena, California, wrote in a blog post Friday, the ion engine used on Dawn is something else as well, Dawn's current trek is so leisurely because the probe uses low-thrust, hyperefficient ion engines rather than a traditional chemical-propulsion system, 'If you hold a single piece of paper in your hand, the paper will push on your hand as hard as the ion engine pushes on the spacecraft,' Rayman said during a news conference Friday, Dawn is currently on the dwarf planet's dark side and won't beam home any new photos of Ceres until April 10, Rayman said, so if you are into space exciting times ahead.
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