Dawn is dead, but Dawn is not gone: Today NASA said that the Dawn spacecraft has fallen out of contact with Earth, presumably because it’s run out of the thruster fuel that was used to keep its antennas oriented toward Earth and its power-generating solar panels oriented toward the sun.
After Dawn missed out on communications sessions on Wednesday and today, NASA declared an end to the mission.
During its 11 years in space, Dawn sent back unprecedented closeups of the asteroid Vesta as well as Ceres, which is the largest known asteroid and the smallest confirmed dwarf planet.
Dawn will continue circling Ceres for decades to come in the main asteroid belt, 257 million miles out from the sun.
