Dawn Sends Back First Close-up Image of Vesta

Just a couple of days after becoming the first probe to orbit a body in the Inner Asteroid Belt, the NASA Dawn spacecraft managed to send back the first close-up images of the giant asteroid Vesta.

The object is the largest known space rock in the solar system, bordering on being classified as a protoplanet. The exact nature of the object is one of the main mysteries related to it and Dawn has been dispatched to shed some light on this.

This is not the first time that the spacecraft images the space rock. Its navigational cameras have done this before, as mission controllers were trying to calculate the best possible route for achieving orbital insertion. What sets the new images apart is the fact that they were taken from near-by.

According to mission controllers at the NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL), in Pasadena, California, the level of detail contained in these views is unmatched. The pictures were collected for navigational purposes as well, on Sunday, July 17.

Dawn achieved orbital insertion around its target late Friday, July 15, after a flight that lasted for more than 4 years. The spacecraft launched on September 27, 2007, after the astronomical community had been observing the enormous asteroid for more than 200 years, Space reports.

“We are beginning the study of arguably the oldest extant primordial surface in the solar system,” Christopher Russell explained in a new statement. The expert is the principal investigator of the mission, and is based at the University of California in Los Angeles (UCLA).

“This region of space has been ignored for far too long. So far, the images received to date reveal a complex surface that seems to have preserved some of the earliest events in Vesta's history, as well as logging the onslaught that Vesta has suffered in the intervening eons,” he added.

Past studies conducted on the object indicate that it may have begun forming as a normal rocky planet, similar to Mercury, Venus, Earth and Mars. However, certain phenomena prevented it from developing fully, effectively shunting its growth.

Astronomers believe that the gas giant Jupiter may have played a role in stopping both Vesta and the dwarf planet Ceres (also in the asteroid belt) from reaching their full potential. Gravitational influences from the massive planet most likely stirred up the belt material.

Now that the NASA space probe is orbiting the asteroid, many mysteries related to its history may be revealed. Studies conducted here may also provide more insight into the way our solar system evolved.

“Dawn slipped gently into orbit with the same grace it has displayed during its years of ion thrusting through interplanetary space,” Dawn chief engineer Marc Rayman explains. He is also the mission manager at the JPL.

“It is fantastically exciting that we will begin providing humankind its first detailed views of one of the last unexplored worlds in the inner solar system,” the expert concludes.