APOD: Virtual Flight over Asteroid Vesta (2019 Jun 30)

[APOD Robot]

Virtual Flight over Asteroid Vesta

Explanation: What would it be like to fly over the asteroid Vesta? Animators from the German Aerospace Center took actual images and height data from NASA's Dawn mission when it visited asteroid Vesta a few years ago and generated a virtual movie. The featured video begins with a sequence above Divalia Fossa, an unusual pair of troughs running parallel over heavily cratered terrain. Next, the virtual spaceship explores Vesta's 60-km Marcia Crater, showing numerous vivid details. Last, Dawn images were digitally recast with exaggerated height to better reveal Vesta's 5-km high mountain Aricia Tholus. The second largest object in the Solar System's asteroid belt, Vesta is the brightest asteroid visible from Earth and can be found with binoculars. Using Vesta Trek, you can explore all over Vesta yourself.

<< Previous APOD

This Day in APOD

Next APOD >>

[Boomer12k]

Nice one...

:---[===] *

[orin stepanek]

Since Ceres is A Dwarf; I guess that makes Vesta the Largest Asteroid? I see doing browsing that Ceres is still considered an asteroid!

[E Fish]

I'm guessing there are reasons for it, but I don't like it when they do the height exaggerations. I'd rather see the real height in comparison to the terrain.

[BDanielMayfield]

Since Ceres is A Dwarf; I guess that makes Vesta the Largest Asteroid? I see doing browsing that Ceres is still considered an asteroid!

Quoting NASA, here is why Vesta itself isn't also called a Dwarf planet:

The giant asteroid is almost spherical, and so is nearly classified a dwarf planet. Unlike most known asteroids, Vesta has separated into crust, mantle and core (a characteristic known as being differentiated), much like Earth.

Understanding why this is so was one of the objectives of the Dawn mission. The answer turned out to be that Vesta formed early, within 1 to 2 million years of the birth of the solar system. Short-lived radioactive material that was incorporated into bodies that formed during this epoch heated them to the point where—in cases like Vesta—the objects melted, allowing the denser materials to sink to the asteroid's core and the lower density materials to rise.

Probably the most important short-lived isotope that caused Vesta to internally melt and separate into core, mantle and crust was Aluminum-26, produced abundantly by a SN close to the Sun's birthplace. ²⁶Al has a half-life of only 716,000 years, and it's decay product is stable Magnesium. Some of the essential element Mg in our bodies used to be radioactive Al.

Bruce

[Cousin Ricky]

That star field looks fake. Neil deGrasse Tyson is gonna have a fit.

[orin stepanek]

Since Ceres is A Dwarf; I guess that makes Vesta the Largest Asteroid? I see doing browsing that Ceres is still considered an asteroid!

Quoting NASA, here is why Vesta itself isn't also called a Dwarf planet:

The giant asteroid is almost spherical, and so is nearly classified a dwarf planet. Unlike most known asteroids, Vesta has separated into crust, mantle and core (a characteristic known as being differentiated), much like Earth.

Understanding why this is so was one of the objectives of the Dawn mission. The answer turned out to be that Vesta formed early, within 1 to 2 million years of the birth of the solar system. Short-lived radioactive material that was incorporated into bodies that formed during this epoch heated them to the point where—in cases like Vesta—the objects melted, allowing the denser materials to sink to the asteroid's core and the lower density materials to rise.

Probably the most important short-lived isotope that caused Vesta to internally melt and separate into core, mantle and crust was Aluminum-26, produced abundantly by a SN close to the Sun's birthplace. ²⁶Al has a half-life of only 716,000 years, and it's decay product is stable Magnesium. Some of the essential element Mg in our bodies used to be radioactive Al.

Bruce

I know why Vesta is an asteroid & why Ceres is a dwarf!!! My poser is why Ceres is still called an asteroid by many on the Net!

[Guest]

Agreed. Why exaggerate the vertical? We don't do that when we illustrate terrestrial mountains. Show us what it really looks like.