Posted in Astronomy at 20:51 on 23 May 2012
This is from You Tube via Astronomy Picture of the Day.
Its an animation using images and height data from NASA’s Dawn mission to give an illusion of overflying the minor planet (or asteroid as they used to be called) Vesta.
Posted in Astronomy at 13:00 on 21 July 2011
This was Astronomy Picture of the Day‘s picture on 19/7/11.
It’s the asteroid Vesta and on its own makes up over 10% of the asteroid belt by mass but is still only the second largest of those minor planets (after Ceres.)
The Dawn spacecraft is the first to get close to Vesta. It’s going to go on to visit Ceres in 2015.
