Dawn Images Vesta from Low Orbit

Shortly after entering its low-altitude mapping orbit (LAMO), the NASA Dawn spacecraft began sending back a large number of highly-detailed images of how the largest asteroid in our solar system looks like. The views were snapped using the framing cameras on the spacecraft.

For experts studying the early days of the solar system, this orbit has the potential to turn Dawn into a goldmine. The goal of geologists and planetary scientists is to figure out how this object formed in the earliest days of the solar system, and how it evolved to the size of a protoplanet.

LAMO also enables researchers to survey the weird surface of Vesta in detail. The asteroid is apparently made up of a wide variety of soils and materials, which were most likely brought there by other impacts. Learning about them may reveal what goes on in the Inner Asteroid Belt.

Dawn will remain in this orbit for at least 10 weeks, during which time it will continue to survey as much of Vesta as possible. In July 2012, the spacecraft will exist the asteroid's orbit, and will begin to travel towards the dwarf planet Ceres, also in the asteroid belt.