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During its decade-long journey, Dawn has observed planet-like worlds Vesta and Ceres, collecting detailed data about the two fascinating bodies in the main asteroid belt.
Images from Dawn's framing camera, taken for navigation purposes and as preparation for scientific observations, are revealing the first surface details of the giant asteroid. These images go all the way around Vesta, since the giant asteroid turns on its axis once every five hours and 20 minutes.
Findings from Dawn reveal new details about the giant asteroid Vesta, including its varied surface composition, sharp temperature changes and clues to its internal structure.
Asteroids range in size from Vesta – the largest at about 329 miles (530 kilometers) in diameter – to bodies that are less than 33 feet (10 meters) across. The total mass of all the asteroids combined is less than that of Earth's Moon.
Images from NASA's Dawn Mission have been used to create a series of high-resolution geological maps of the large asteroid Vesta, revealing the variety of surface features in unprecedented detail.
Roughly half of the giant asteroid Vesta is expected to be so cold, with so little sunlight, that water ice could have survived there for billions of years.
A new study of images from NASA's Dawn mission examines remarkable, dark-as-coal material that speckles the surface of the giant asteroid Vesta. Scientists are using the images, taken by Dawn's framing camera, to understand the impact environment early in Vesta's evolution.
Exploring Vesta’s crater walls (some of which are higher than Everest), deep canyons and magmatic history, Dawn illuminated Vesta’s striking geological features and expanded upon our previous understanding of the asteroid.
Vesta is most commonly called an asteroid because it lies in the orbiting rubble patch known as the main asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter. But the vast majority of objects in the main belt are lightweights, 100-kilometers-wide (about 60-miles wide) or smaller, compared with Vesta, which is about 530 kilometers (330 miles) across on average.
New images from NASA's Dawn mission show the giant asteroid Vesta at the scale of regional road touring maps.