NASA’s Dawn Mission to host space festival celebrating Ceres exploration

NASA’s Dawn spacecraft, managed by JPL, has spent seven years cruising at “stunning” speeds in outer space, and has now arrived at its second destination in the main asteroid belt – dwarf planet Ceres.

To celebrate the beginning of its exploration, NASA is hosting the “I C Ceres” space festival with events at museums, planetariums and universities worldwide -- including a local event this Saturday at CalTech.

The event will feature an outdoor space expo from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m., where visitors can tour the solar system, visit booths to learn about NASA missions and how the agency communicates with spacecraft beyond Earth orbit, and see live demonstrations.

Visitors will also get to see and touch meteorites, rover wheels and other space hardware, and take virtual walks on the moon, Mars and asteroid Vesta.

The second part of the event includes a series of talks from 12:30 to 4:30 p.m., with a youth-oriented talk from 12:30 to 1:30 p.m. and talks geared towards adults after 2 p.m.

Speakers include Jim Green, Director of NASA’s Planetary Science Division; Carol Raymond, Dawn mission deputy principal investigator with JPL; Dante Lauretta, OSIRIS REx mission principal investigator from the University of Arizona, Tucson; and Claudia Alexander, U.S. Rosetta project scientist with JPL, along with Alan Stern, New Horizons mission principal investigator with the Southwest Research Institute.

The talks, including a panel discussion about icy worlds, asteroids and comets, will also be broadcast live via Ustream.

The free event runs from 10 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. Food will be available for purchase at onsite food trucks.

More information can be found on the “I C Ceres” website.