NASA's Dawn spacecraft made history Friday, March 6, 2015 after it began to orbit the dwarf planet Ceres.

Dawn's achievement is significant as it has become the with a dwarf planet, Space.com reports.

Dawn was PST, NASA revealed. The spacecraft achieved the feat around 38,000 miles out.

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Ceres was first discovered over 200 years ago in 1801, Space.com says, and has gone through several changes in the astronomy books.

The celestial body was first perceived as a planet before being dubbed an asteroid and finally resting as a dwarf planet, noted Marc Rayman, Dawn chief engineer and mission director at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California in a news release.

Dawn was first launched in September 2007, costing $473 million, its mission to study Vesta, a giant asteroid, and Ceres, Space.com reported. The spacecraft first achieved orbit with Vesta in July 2011, remaining in orbit until September 2012 and moving on to Ceres.

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Rayman described to NBC, "Usually, there's a big, bone-rattling, whiplash-producing maneuver, but Dawn flies most of the time on this pillar of blue-green xenon ions, just like a spacecraft from science fiction ... It's a beautiful celestial pas de deux, these two dancers together. I think it's really a remarkable scene to imagine. It's so different from what we're accustomed to from five decades of previous space exploration."

Dawn will deliver breathtaking images and observations of the mysterious Ceres over the next 16 months, says Space.com.

Chris Russell, principal investigator of the Dawn mission at the Universityof California, Los Angeles, expressed the team's excitement, "We feel exhilarated. We have much to do over the next year and a half, but we are now on station with ample reserves and a robust plan to obtain our science objectives."

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An infrared composite image taken by the Spitzer Space Telescope shows the Dwarf Galaxy located about 62 million light-years from Earth. This photo was taken in 2013. (NASA)