This image gallery of the Viesta Asteroid was captured by NASA’s DAWN Spacecraft.
The DAWN Spacecraft mission is to help scientists learn about what the conditions and objects in our solar system when it was just forming:
Dawn’s goal is to characterize the conditions and processes of the solar system’s earliest epoch by investigating in detail two of the largest protoplanets remaining intact since their formations. Ceres and Vesta reside in the extensive zone between Mars and Jupiter together with many other smaller bodies, called the asteroid belt. Each has followed a very different evolutionary path constrained by the diversity of processes that operated during the first few million years of solar system evolution. More about DAWN
The Asteroid Belt is a zone of asteroids, or irregularly shapes rocks much smaller than planets or moons. The Asteroid Belt lies between the orbits of Mars and Jupiter. Ceres and Viesta are the largest objects in this region. So they are the most interesting. If you have time check out the DAWN Mission Video narrated by LEONARD NIMOY!!! (If your kid doesn’t know who that is, go here)
Source: Views of the Asteroid Vesta – Photo Essays – TIME.
-Mike
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