Image credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/UCLA/MPS/DLR/IDA/PSI
The NASA Dawn mission to asteroid Vesta has provided a new perspective of the asteroid that shows the topography, but removes the overall curvature of the space rock.
The peak of Vesta’s south pole mountain as seen in the center of the image, rises about 13 miles (22 kilometers) above the average height of the surrounding terrain. Another impressive structure is a large scarp, a cliff with a steep slope, on the right side of this image. The scarp bounds part of the south polar depression, and the Dawn team’s scientists believe features around its base are probably the result of landslides.
This perspective is as if the giant asteroid were flat and not rounded. An observer on Vesta would not have a view like this, because the distant features would disappear over the curvature of the horizon.
In the same way, if you were standing in North America, you would not be able to see a tall Mt. Everest in the distance, because of Earth’s curvature.
Dawn entered orbit around asteroid Vesta in July.
The spacecraft is operated under NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, a division of the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena, for NASA’s Science Mission Directorate, Washington. UCLA is responsible for overall Dawn mission science.
By Leonard David