Friday, May 11, 2012

Fly Over Vesta via DAWN Movie

Hey Space Placers!

NASA has compiled a Vesta fly over movie that is just about as good as it can get for being there yourself. We see what the spacecraft has been seeing for almost a year and the view is very, very impressive. The movie is narrated by a senior member of the DAWN team so it is educational as well as entertaining.

Scientists now think of Vesta, the second largest asteroid in the solar system, as being very much like our own Moon and a true protoplanet. They have also conclusively linked a class of meteorites found here on Earth as being from Vesta - I have several specimens in my meteorite collection.

DAWN will remain at Vesta a bit longer before heading out for the biggest asteroid Ceres.

Check out the movie: "Fly Over Vesta" DAWN Movie:  http://dawn.jpl.nasa.gov/multimedia/video/Vesta20110915-1280.mov

Also check out the more news from Vesta: http://dawn.jpl.nasa.gov/ and the very latest http://dawn.jpl.nasa.gov/feature_stories/secrets_of_vesta_revealed.asp

Here is a scale photo from NASA showing Vesta and Ceres compared to Mars and the Moon:

Composite images showing three views of terrain near asteroid Vesta's Aquilia crater

Sky Guy in VA

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