This image obtained by the framing camera on NASA's Dawn spacecraft shows the south pole of the giant asteroid Vesta. The video below is a series of photos built up from the same framing camera on Dawn. These images will go a long way towards helping scientists determine the processes that formed Vesta's striking features. As the film shows, Vesta has a massive impact event recorded in the southern hemisphere as well as striking formation of ridges running around the equator of the asteroid. These images were obtained when Dawn was about 1,700 miles above Vesta's surface. Later this year, most likely in October, NASA plans to have Dawn lower it's orbital height to gain even higher resolution photographs.
4 comments:
Cool! It's fascinating to think that all the rocky planets (Mercury, Venus, Earth, and Mars - and likely also the dwarf planet Ceres) all looked much like that early in their formation. Without the smiley face though!
Ok on the south pole is a smiley face :) . Makes me think God is saying I was here first:) and "I made this"
One thing is clear though, 350 miles is not enough mass to quite pull the body into a sphere. It is big enough however to support some fascinating...
umm it wouldn't be geology but they were calling the makeup of the moon "terrain"...so maybe not geography but terrain would have people out for blood!
Ha! I didn't see it at first, but there it is!
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