The Dawn spacecraft will launch on Sunday from Cape Canaveral, Florida. This mission was scheduled for last year, but was delayed because of technical problems. Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California will manage the spaceship.
The asteroids are the biggest in solar system. The Dawn spacecraft will visit Vesta, the smaller asteroid, in 2011. Later in 2015 the spacecraft will visit Ceres. Ceres is proved to be not only an asteroid, but also a dwarf planet.
These missions are to answer the question of how solar system was created. Scientist Christopher Russell, the head of mission said: "We're trying to go back in time as well as to go out there in space."
"If you want to understand the Earth, it's important to understand how it came to be and that's where asteroids come in. They're the building blocks," said Jay Melosh, a planetary geologist.
Ceres was previously thought to be an asteroid, but last summer it got the status of dwarf planet just like Pluto.
Scientists believe that Ceres and Vesta have been in solar system from 4.5 billion years ago. They have been in solar system during formation of Mercury, Venus, Earth and Mars. The growth of asteroids was initiated by Jupiter's gravitational pull, but the bodies couldn’t turn into planets.
The asteroids are of different types: Vesta is dry, with impact of crater, and Ceres is dusty, covered with ice-shell. Scientists need to explore the asteroids to uncover Earth’s mystery. HULIQ
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