Video Credit: NASA
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Tag Archives: Vesta
Marooned Off Vesta
Marooned Off Vesta was written in 1938 by Isaac Asimov when he was 18 years old. It was one of the first science fiction stories that I read as a kid back in the ’50s. It deals with three astronauts shipwrecked in orbit around the asteroid and how they use their limited resources to save themselves.
This video put together from images taken by the Dawn spacecraft shows what it might be like to be marooned off Vesta.
Video Credit: NASA, DLR
Hygiea, Vesta, and Ceres
New ground-based observations with ESO’s SPHERE instrument on the Very Large Telescope have revealed that the surface of the asteroid Hygiea lacks a large impact crater. Because it was formed from one of the largest impacts in the history of the asteroid belt, astronomers were expecting to find at least one large, deep impact basin, similar to the one on Vesta (bottom right in the central panel).
The new study also found that Hygiea is spherical. That would mean that it rather than Ceres is the smallest dwarf planet in the Solar System. Hygiea’s diameter is just over 430 km, a bit less than half that of Ceres (950 km).
Image Credit: ESO
The Dawn Mission Winds Down
The Dawn spacecraft is running out of fuel for the thrusters that allow it to point its antenna toward Earth to receive commands and send back data.
Video Credit: NASA
Vesta: A Full Rotation
This animated gif shows a full rotation of the asteroid Vesta as seen from the Dawn spacecraft. Vesta’s actual rotation period is 5.342 hours.
Image Credits: NASA
Dusk for Dawn
Video Credit: NASA
Ceres
The Dawn spacecraft took this picture of the dwarf planet Ceres, the largest body in the main asteroid belt, on 1 December. It was about 1.2 million km away. Dawn will be captured into Ceres’ orbit in March. That will be the first visit to a dwarf planet by a spacecraft. Later in 2015, New Horizons will fly by the dwarf planet Pluto.
Dawn has already visited Vesta, a giant protoplanet currently located 168 million km from Ceres. That’s greater than the distance between the Earth and the sun. During its 14 months in orbit around Vesta, the spacecraft sent back images of its cratered surface and science data containing important clues about its geological history. Vesta and Ceres are the two most massive bodies in the main asteroid belt. Ceres has a mean diameter of about 950 km.
The nine-pixel-wide image of Ceres released today serves as a final calibration of the science camera that is necessary before Dawn arrives at Ceres. At the current range between the spacecraft and the dwarf planet, it appears approximately as bright as Venus sometimes appears from Earth.
Dawn’s Greatest Hits (So Far)
[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vSS8yuk4bDw]
Video Credit: NASA
Asteroids!
The Curiosity rover on Mars has taken the first image of asteroids taken from the surface of Mars. The image includes two asteroids, the dwarf planet Ceres and Vesta. This version includes Mars’ moon Deimos in a circular, exposure-adjusted inset and square insets at left from other observations the same night. Click the image to embiggen it. Ceres is very dim, but easier to spot in the larger version.
Image Credit: NASA
A Full View of Vesta
This mosaic was assembled from some of the best views the Dawn spacecraft had of the giant asteroid Vesta. A mountain near the south pole which is more than twice the height of Mount Everest is visible at the bottom of the picture. The set of three craters known as “The Snowman” can be seen at the top left.
Dawn was in orbit around the asteroid Vesta in 2011 and 2012 but is now moving on to the dwarf planet Ceres. Ceres was once just an asteroid, but when the definition of planet was rewritten a few yeas ago, Pluto was demoted and Ceres promoted to dwarf planet status.
Image Credit: NASA
Isaac Asimov and Vesta
Marooned Off Vesta was written in 1938 by Isaac Asimov when he was 18 years old. It was one of the first science fiction stories that I read as a kid back in the ’50s. It deals with three astronauts shipwrecked in orbit around the asteroid and how they use their limited resources to save themselves.
This video put together from images taken by the Dawn spacecraft shows what it might be like to be marooned off Vesta.
Video Credit: NASA, DLR
Vesta in the Rear View Mirror
Isaac Asimov’s first published story was Marooned off Vesta. The Dawn spacecraft won’t be. Last week, Dawn spacecraft ended its year-long mission at asteroid Vesta. It was the first spacecraft ever to visit this world in the Solar System’s main asteroid belt located between Mars and Jupiter. Two weeks ago, Dawn fired its gentle ion rockets and began chasing the dwarf planet Ceres. If everything goes as planned, Dawn will reach Ceres in 2015. What will Dawn find?
Image Credit: NASA
Vesta in Color
These composite images from the framing camera aboard NASA’s Dawn spacecraft show three views of the same terrain near Aquilia crater on the giant asteroid Vesta. The black-and-white image highlights topography, a colorized image highlights chemical composition, and a combination of the two shows the relationship between topography and composition.
An unnamed crater is visible at top left and a portion of the larger Aquilia crater is visible as a semicircle in the lower right. The two craters have fresh rims and sharply defined shapes, which seem to indicate that they are relatively new. The crater at top left shows a defined blanket of material that was ejected during impact. That blanket shows as dark blue in the colorized image.
The framing camera has seven color filters that allow it to image Vesta in different wavelengths of light. Being able to image in multiple wavelengths allows detection of features normally invisible to the naked eye. In this colorized image green shows the relative amount of iron. Brighter green signifies a higher relative strength of this band, indicating chemistry involving pyroxene. On the other hand, reddish colors indicate either a different mineralogy or a stronger weathered surface.
These images were taken during Dawn’s high-altitude mapping orbit 680 km above the surface. They cover an area that is about 60 km square near the edge of the Rheasilvia basin in Vesta’s southern hemisphere.
Image Credit: NASA
Watch Out For That First Step
Image Credit: NASA
Asteroid Vesta is home to some of the most impressive cliffs in the Solar System. Near the image center is a very deep cliff that runs about 20 km from top to bottom. 20 km is a greater distance than from the deepest ocean trench on earth to the top of Mt. Everest. A similar feature on the earth would be over 240 km tall!
Picture of the Day
Image credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/UCLA/MPS/DLR/IDA/PSI
A new image from NASA’s Dawn spacecraft shows a mountain almost three times as high as Mt. Everest, amidst the topography in the south polar region of the giant asteroid Vesta. The peak of Vesta’s south pole mountain, seen in the center of the image, rises about 22 km above the average height of the surrounding terrain. Another impressive structure is a large scarp, a cliff with a steep slope, on the right side of this image. The scarp bounds part of the south polar depression, and the Dawn team’s scientists believe features around its base are probably the result of landslides.
The Asteriod Vesta
This full view of the giant asteroid Vesta was taken by NASA’s Dawn spacecraft, as part of a rotation characterization sequence on July 24, 2011, at a distance of 3,200 miles (5,200 kilometers). A rotation characterization sequence helps the scientists and engineers by giving an initial overview of the character of the surface as Vesta rotated underneath the spacecraft. This view of Vesta shows impact craters of various sizes and grooves parallel to the equator.
Image credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/UCLA/MPS/DLR/IDA
