Latest 4 Vesta Stories

WASHINGTON, July 28, 2011 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- NASA will host a news conference on Monday, Aug. 1, at noon EDT, to discuss the Dawn spacecraft's successful orbit insertion around Vesta on July 15 and unveil the first full-frame images from Dawn's framing camera. The news conference will be held in the Von Karman auditorium at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL), 4800 Oak Grove Dr., Pasadena, Calif. Journalists also may ask questions from participating NASA locations or join by...

NASA will host a news conference on Monday, Aug. 1, at 2 p.m. EDT, to discuss the Dawn spacecraft's successful orbit insertion around Vesta on July 15 and unveil the first full-frame images from Dawn's framing camera. The news conference will be held in the Von Karman auditorium at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL), 4800 Oak Grove Dr., Pasadena, Calif. Journalists also may ask questions from participating NASA locations or join by phone. To obtain dial-in information, journalists must...

Dawn took this image during its current orbit of Vesta, traveling from the day side to the night side. The large structure near the south pole that showed up so prominently in previous images is visible in the center of the illuminated surface. Compared to other images, this one shows more of the surface beneath the spacecraft in the shadow of night. Vesta turns on its axis once every five hours and 20 minutes.Dawn entered orbit around Vesta on July 15, 2011, and will spend a year orbiting...

PASADENA, Calif., July 18, 2011 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- NASA's Dawn spacecraft has returned the first close-up image after beginning its orbit around the giant asteroid Vesta. On Friday, July 15, Dawn became the first probe to enter orbit around an object in the main asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter. (Logo: http://photos.prnewswire.com/prnh/20081007/38461LOGO) The image taken for navigation purposes shows Vesta in greater detail than ever before. When Vesta captured Dawn into its...

NASA's Dawn spacecraft returned the first close-up image of the asteroid Vesta on Sunday. The space agency said its spacecraft became the first probe to enter orbit around an object in the main asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter on Friday, July 15. NASA said the image shows Vesta in greater detail than ever before.  Vesta is 330 miles in diameter and the second most massive object in the asteroid belt. Dawn entered the asteroid's orbit within about 9,900 miles between the...

NASA's Dawn probe successfully entered orbit around the asteroid Vesta on Saturday, the US space agency announced in a press release early Sunday morning.It is the first spacecraft to successfully enter orbit around an object in the main asteroid belt, located between Mars and Jupiter, and will spend the next year studying the potato-shaped asteroid before departing for a dwarf planet named Ceres next July."Today, we celebrate an incredible exploration milestone as a spacecraft enters...

PASADENA, Calif., July 17, 2011 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- NASA's Dawn spacecraft on Saturday became the first probe ever to enter orbit around an object in the main asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter. (Logo: http://photos.prnewswire.com/prnh/20081007/38461LOGO ) Dawn will study the asteroid, named Vesta, for a year before departing for a second destination, a dwarf planet named Ceres, in July 2012. Observations will provide unprecedented data to help scientists understand the earliest...

NASA said its Dawn probe should go into orbit around the asteroid Vesta on Friday. The satellite will spend a year at the asteroid before moving on to the "dwarf planet" Ceres. NASA said Dawn's encounter is taking place at about 117 million miles from Earth. Engineers believe the spacecraft will be captured into orbit around the asteroid on Friday and will get confirmation from Dawn on Saturday. NASA said there will be about 9,900 miles between Vesta and Dawn once the spacecraft...

PASADENA, Calif., July 14, 2011 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- On July 15, NASA's Dawn spacecraft will begin a prolonged encounter with the asteroid Vesta, making the mission the first to enter orbit around a main-belt asteroid. (Logo: http://photos.prnewswire.com/prnh/20081007/38461LOGO) The main asteroid belt lies between the orbits of Mars and Jupiter. Dawn will study Vesta for one year, and observations will help scientists understand the earliest chapter of our solar system's history. As...

By Dauna Coulter - Science@NASAJuly 6, 2011: NASA's Dawn spacecraft is closing in on Vesta, and from now until the ion-powered spacecraft goes into orbit in mid-July, every picture of the giant asteroid will be the best one ever taken. What will researchers do with this unprecedented clarity?"For starters," says Dawn chief engineer Marc Rayman, "we're going to look for an asteroid moon."You might think of asteroids as isolated bodies tumbling alone through space, but it's...