Ceres Featured In Colorful Flyby, Video Highlights Craters (VIDEO)

Ceres' is now being portrayed in a colorful animation. The mini movie was created by members of the Dawn framing camera team at the German Aerospace Center, DLR, according to a NASA report. The animation portrays a flyby over the surface of dwarf planet Ceres, which were captured by NASA's Dawn spacecraft.

Ceres is pictured in enhanced color, which highlights the different features and structures of the planet's surface materials and areas. The researchers believe that the areas in shades of blue have fresher and younger materials, which includes flows, pits and cracks. Some of Ceres' most famous craters, like Occator and the conical mountain Ahuna Mons are emphasized in the movie. Some of Ceres features are addressed in earthly agricultural spirits, deities and festivals.

"The simulated over flight shows the wide range of crater shapes that we have encountered on Ceres," Ralf Jaumann, a Dawn mission scientist at DLR, said in a news release. "The viewer can observe the sheer walls of the crater Occator, and also Dantu and Yalode, where the craters are a lot flatter."

Dawn's Ceres mission lasted from Aug. to Oct. 2015 and the observations were taken at an altitude of about 900 miles (1,450 kilometers).

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