NASA’s Dawn spacecraft is getting closer to the biggest asteroid in the asteroid belt every day. Also classified as a dwarf planet due to its round shape, Ceres is set to be visited by the probe next year. Dawn will start to make its approach on Boxing Day (Dec 26th) and will arrive around Easter. 2015 really will be the year of the dwarf planet, as New Horizons is also set to rendezvous with Pluto in July.

Dawn sees Ceres from a distance of 1.2 million kilometres [credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/UCLA/MPS/DLR/IDA]

Dawn sees Ceres from a distance of 1.2 million kilometres [credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/UCLA/MPS/DLR/IDA]