The DAWN Framing Camera looking at Ceres

NASA's DAWN mission will start orbiting and mapping Ceres in 2015.

The Framing Camera (FC) is the German contribution to NASA's DAWN mission (http://dawn.jpl.nasa.gov/), which will orbit the large main-belt asteroid 1 Ceres in 2015/16. The FC returned already in 2011/12 thousands of images of the asteroid 4 Vesta, leading to numerous scientific publications. The camera will map Ceres through a clear filter and 7 band-pass filters covering the wavelength range from the visual to the near-IR. The camera data will be used to reconstruct the formation and evolution processes acting on Ceres. FC data is further intended to be used to determine physical parameters as well as global shape and local topography of Ceres.

Students will obtain an outstanding opportunity to get involved in one of NASA's major science missions visiting, for the first time, the largest asteroid of the main belt. The PhD candidate will be directly involved in the FC imaging data analysis focusing on geological mapping and surface process reconstruction. The PhD candidate will be a member of the FC team at MPS that is embedded in the international DAWN science team.