Fly Over Vesta's Cratered Terrain with Dawn

By Nancy Atkinson - May 10, 2012 at 10:32 PM UTC | Planetary Science

I've been waiting for nearly two months to be able to share these videos from the Dawn mission's "flyover" views of Vesta. Scientists showed some of these incredible views at the Lunar and Planetary Science Conference in March, but couldn't make them public until they published their work in the journal Science.

"Vesta is unlike any other object we've visited in the solar system," said Dawn mission team member Vishnu Reddy at a briefing today. "We see a wide range of variation on the surface, with some areas bright as snow, and other areas as dark as coal."

The video above is a stunningly beautiful flyover of most of Vesta. Another video, below, takes viewers on a virtual tour of Vesta's south polar basin, the 'snowman' set of craters and a crater called Oppia.

Scientists said today that Vesta more closely resembles a small planet or Earth's Moon than another asteroid, and they now have a better understanding of both Vesta's surface and interior, and can conclusively link Vesta with meteorites that have fallen on Earth.

Vesta a wide range of terrain with craters, ridges, steep slopes -- much steeper than on any other planetary body in our solar system -- and more.

"Dawn's visit to Vesta thas confirmed our broad theories of this giant asteroid's history, while helping to fill in details it would have been impossible to know from afar," said Carol Raymond, deputy principal investigator for Dawn. "Dawn's residence at Vesta of nearly a year has made the asteroid's planet-like qualities obvious and shown us our connection to that bright orb in our night sky."

"As one of the largest asteroids, Vesta is a type of solar system body that we have not explored before," said David O'Brien from the Planetary Science Institute. "It is a transitional body between asteroids and full-sized planets. It is similar to many of the small planetesimals that were the building blocks of the planets, and at the same time has many features of a small planet itself, having melted and formed a core and crust, and having a diverse range of surface features and compositions."

We'll provide more images and detail in an upcoming article on Dawn's visit to Vesta.

Read the team's abstract.

Nancy Atkinson

Nancy Atkinson

Nancy Atkinson is a space journalist and author with a passion for telling the stories of people involved in space exploration and astronomy. She is currently retired from daily writing, but worked at Universe Today for 20 years as a writer and editor. She also contributed articles to The Planetary Society, Ad Astra (National Space Society), New Scientist and many other online outlets.

Her 2019 book, "Eight Years to the Moon: The History of the Apollo Missions,” shares the untold stories of engineers and scientists who worked behind the scenes to make the Apollo program so successful, despite the daunting odds against it. Her first book “Incredible Stories From Space: A Behind-the-Scenes Look at the Missions Changing Our View of the Cosmos” (2016) tells the stories of 37 scientists and engineers that work on several current NASA robotic missions to explore the solar system and beyond.

Nancy is also a NASA/JPL Solar System Ambassador, and through this program, she has the opportunity to share her passion of space and astronomy with children and adults through presentations and programs. Nancy's personal website is nancyatkinson.com