Close-up of Occator Crater

This view across the southeastern floor of the large Occator Crater on the dwarf planet Ceres, in the main asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter, is based on images obtained during NASA's Dawn spacecraft second extended mission in 2018. The southern rim in the distance rises 2 miles (3.5 kilometers) above the floor. These images were obtained from altitudes between 22 and 31 miles (35 and 50 kilometers.) Occator Crater is 57 miles (92 kilometers) across. Bright pits and mounds in the foreground were formed by salty liquid released during the freezing of the water-rich floor, following the crater-forming impact about 20 million years ago. These features are a few miles across. This area shown here is 6 miles (about 10 kilometers) wide in the foreground and 12 miles (about 20 kilometers) in the background. This image was produced by Paul Schenk at the Lunar and Planetary Institute in Houston. https://photojournal.jpl.nasa.gov/catalog/PIA24022