Another New Dawn in Space
October 15th 2011 02:07
Category: Space Probes
Topography of Vesta showing the south polar region the large mountain can seen in the centre of the image.This image of asteroid Vesta was calculated from a shape model to flatten the image to obtain an overall perspective
Dawn’s 6 years adventure began on September 27, 2007.The Dawn I am referring to is a NASA spacecraft. on a mission to explore the tiny
” worlds” of Vesta and then on to Ceres.
Vesta and Ceres are remnants of the early Solar System.To small to form a planet but big enough to be become asteroids.
Wide angle view of Vesta
Vest and Ceres are perhaps the most interesting objects to observe.
They can be seen with the naked eye and have been of interest since their discovery almost two centuries ago. The early images of Vest showed very little detail.
The images from Earth based telescopes showed only portions of the asteroids scarred surface.
Although images obtained much later by the Hubble telescope did show considerably more detail in the images.
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July 2011 the space probe went into orbit around Vesta images obtained from the Dawn space probe
are of particular interest because they object that were formed within the early formation of the SolarSystem.
They can help us find the answers to the formation of the first rocky planets within our Solar system.
The image of Vesta was taken by the space probe it shows Vesta's south pole mountain, seen in the centre of the image, rises about 13 miles (22 kilometers) above the average height of the surrounding terrain. The image was based on a model of vesta.
This perspective shows the topography, but removes the overall curvature of Vesta, as if the giant asteroid were flat and not rounded.
The reason for this is if an observer on ”(1) Vesta would not have a view like this, because the distant features would disappear over the curvature of the horizon. (In the same way, if you were standing in North America, you would not be able to see a tall Mt. Everest in the distance, because of Earth's curvature.) “
Of particular interest are images of past craters with smooth areas. The smooth areas were formed ‘ejecta blankets’ ejacta blanket is caused by debris falling back to the surface of the asteroid after an impact. Nest year Dawn will travel to asteroid Ceres.
(1)NASA
images by Max Planck Society, DLR, and NASA/JPL.
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