Latest 4 Vesta Stories

NASA's Dawn mission has received official confirmation that 40 extra days have been added to its exploration of the giant asteroid Vesta, the second most massive object in the main asteroid belt. The mission extension allows Dawn to continue its scientific observations at Vesta until Aug. 26, while still arriving at the dwarf planet Ceres at the same originally scheduled target date in February 2015. "We are leveraging our smooth and successful operations at Vesta to provide for even more...

NASA said on Wednesday its Dawn spacecraft has revealed new details about the surface of the asteroid Vesta. The space agency said its spacecraft shows new images and data of the diversity of Vesta's surface, revealing unusual geological features. Vesta is one of the brightest objects in the solar system and sits in the main belt between Mars and Jupiter, visible to the naked eye from Earth. Dawn has found that some areas on the asteroid can be nearly twice as bright as others, which...

WASHINGTON, March 21, 2012 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- NASA's Dawn spacecraft has revealed unexpected details on the surface of the giant asteroid Vesta. New images and data highlight the diversity of Vesta's surface and reveal unusual geologic features, some of which were never previously seen on asteroids. (Logo: http://photos.prnewswire.com/prnh/20081007/38461LOGO) Vesta is one of the brightest objects in the solar system and the only asteroid in the so-called main belt between...

Since last July, NASA's Dawn spacecraft has been orbiting the asteroid Vesta, and capturing images and other data that are providing surprising results to the delight and amazement of researchers. Dawn's mission is to help reveal the processes and conditions that marked the first few million years — the dawn — of the solar system; and the information the spacecraft has collected about Vesta is changing the way scientists think about the formation of our early universe. Born soon after...

Though generally thought to be quite dry, roughly half of the giant asteroid Vesta is expected to be so cold and to receive so little sunlight that water ice could have survived there for billions of years, according to the first published models of Vesta's average global temperatures and illumination by the sun. "Near the north and south poles, the conditions appear to be favorable for water ice to exist beneath the surface," says Timothy Stubbs of NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in...

When NASA's Dawn spacecraft entered orbit around giant asteroid Vesta in July, scientists fully expected the probe to reveal some surprising sights. But no one expected a 13-mile high mountain, two and a half times higher than Mount Everest, to be one of them. The existence of this towering peak could solve a longstanding mystery: How did so many pieces of Vesta end up right here on our own planet? For many years, researchers have been collecting Vesta meteorites from "fall sites"...

NASA's Dawn spacecraft has sent back the first images of the giant asteroid Vesta from its low-altitude mapping orbit. The images, obtained by the framing camera, show the stippled and lumpy surface in detail never seen before, piquing the curiosity of scientists who are studying Vesta for clues about the solar system's early history. At this detailed resolution, the surface shows abundant small craters, and textures such as small grooves and lineaments that are reminiscent of the...

NASA's Dawn spacecraft successfully maneuvered into its closest orbit around the giant asteroid Vesta on Monday, Dec. 12, beginning a new phase of science observations. The spacecraft is now circling Vesta at an altitude averaging about 130 miles (210 kilometers) in the phase of the mission known as low altitude mapping orbit. "Dawn has performed some complicated and beautiful choreography in order to reach this lowest orbit," said Marc Rayman, Dawn chief engineer and mission manager based...

[ Watch the Video ] Vesta appears in a splendid rainbow-colored palette in new images obtained by NASA's Dawn spacecraft. The colors, assigned by scientists to show different rock or mineral types, reveal Vesta to be a world of many varied, well-separated layers and ingredients. Vesta is unique among asteroids visited by spacecraft to date in having such wide variation, supporting the notion that it is transitional between the terrestrial planets -- like Earth, Mercury, Mars and Venus --...

[ Watch the Video ] Glide over the giant asteroid Vesta with NASA's Dawn spacecraft in a new 3-D video.  Dawn has been orbiting Vesta since July 15, obtaining high-resolution images of its bumpy, cratered surface and making other scientific measurements. The new video is best viewed with red-blue glasses, and incorporates images from Dawn's framing camera from July to August 2011. It was created by Dawn team member Ralf Jaumann of the German Aerospace Center (DLR). The images were...