Related topics: nasa · spacecraft · asteroid

Dawn spacecraft begins approach to dwarf planet Ceres

(Phys.org)—NASA's Dawn spacecraft has entered an approach phase in which it will continue to close in on Ceres, a Texas-sized dwarf planet never before visited by a spacecraft. Dawn launched in 2007 and is scheduled to ...

Vesta is not an intact protoplanet

Nearly forty years ago, Guy Consolmagno was young graduate student at the University of Arizona's Department of Planetary Sciences; his work there with the late Michael Drake first proposed that asteroid Vesta was the parent ...

Dawn snaps its best-yet image of dwarf planet ceres

The Dawn spacecraft has delivered a glimpse of Ceres, the largest body in the main asteroid belt, in a new image taken 740,000 miles (1.2 million kilometers) from the dwarf planet. This is Dawn's best image yet of Ceres as ...

How a giant impact formed asteroid Vesta's 'belt'

When NASA's Dawn spacecraft visited the asteroid Vesta in 2011, it showed that deep grooves that circle the asteroid's equator like a cosmic belt were probably caused by a massive impact on Vesta's south pole. Now, using ...

A challenging series of occultations this weekend and more

Got clear skies? This week's equinox means the return of astronomical Fall for northern hemisphere observers and a slow but steady return of longer nights afterwards. And as the Moon returns to the evening skies, all eyes ...

Asteroid Vesta to reshape theories of planet formation

EPFL researchers have a better understanding of the asteroid Vesta and its internal structure, thanks to numerical simulations and data from the space mission Dawn. Their findings, published today in Nature, question contemporary ...

Presence of serpentine on Vesta suggests exogenic origin

(Phys.org) —Rocks are silent storytellers: because each mineral is created only under certain conditions, they provide insight into the evolution of the body on which they are found. Scientists from the Max Planck Institute ...

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