Vesta via DLR camera system onboard NASA Dawn spacecraft. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/UCLA/MPS/DLR/IDA
NASA’s Dawn spacecraft is circling asteroid Vesta – a world that’s an eye-full of oddness.
A video has been created to show the rocky world with enormous craters and mountains.
The spacecraft is carrying a German camera system on board, has been orbiting the asteroid since July of this year. Varied impact craters, valleys, canyons and mountains among the highest in the Solar System are visible.
“Vesta has totally surprised us,” says Ralf Jaumann, Head of the Planetary Geology Department at the DLR Institute of Planetary Research in Berlin-Adlershof.
The camera system has not only enabled the Dawn spacecraft to navigate to Vesta and safely enter orbit, but also to capture images of the surface with exceptional precision.
For the scientists on the international Dawn mission, the data acquired so far indicates one thing above all: “The task now is to understand what we are seeing on Vesta,” Jaumann said in a press statement from the German Aerospace Center (Deutsches Zentrum für Luft- und Raumfahrt; DLR).
To view the impressive video, go to:
http://www.dlr.de/dlr/presse/en/desktopdefault.aspx/tabid-10172/213_read-1502/year-2011/
By Leonard David