Dwarf planet Ceres. Composite of the dwarf planet Ceres generated from data from NASA's Dawn spacecraft. Ceres is the largest object in the asteroid belt, which lies between the orbits of Mars and Jupiter. Dawn was launched on 27 September 2007 on a mission to study Ceres and the asteroid Vesta, the two largest bodies in the asteroid belt. It will provide data on their composition, formation and the early history of the solar system. This three-dimensional terrain model is based on images taken during orbits at altitudes of 13, 600 kilometres and 5, 100 kilometres. Vertical dimensions have been exaggerated by a factor of two.