We are about to insert an
observation satellite into orbit around Vesta which is the second largest
object in the asteroid belt after Ceres as far as I can recall. It is a long time since I was sixteen and was
up on all this.
Looking at the present images, it
appears that we have little to expect as no atmosphere is in place to move
things around including any water. Yet
we may still be quite surprised as we have consistently been whenever we have viewed
other objects in the solar system.
Since the object was heavily
damaged by an impact, it became the source of around twenty percent of incoming
meteorites on earth. That is also
significant because it informs us that the dominant source of debris in the
inner Solar system is likely to be inner Solar System collision events. Thus it is arguable that Jupiter succeeds in
vacuuming up almost all other debris arriving from the outer solar system and
as far in as the outer Asteroid Belt.
We will soon be receiving close
pictures of this object and may even get most of it mapped.
Dawn probe set to orbit Asteroid Vesta
15 July 2011 Last updated at 13:56 ET
By Jonathan AmosScience correspondent, BBC News
Vesta seen by Dawn at a distance of 41,000km
The US
The robotic satellite will be spending a year at the 530km-wide body
before moving on to the "dwarf planet" Ceres.
New pictures on Dawn's approach to Vesta show the giant rock in
unprecedented detail.
The asteroid looks like a punctured football, the result of a colossal
collision sometime in its past that knocked off its south polar region.
Vesta was discovered in 1807, the fourth asteroid to be identified in
the great belt of rocky debris orbiting between Mars and Jupiter.
At the time, its great scale meant it was designated as another planet
but it later lost this status as researchers learnt more about the diversity of
objects in the Solar System.
Close but careful
Dawn's encounter is occurring about 188 million km (117 million miles)
from Earth.
The probe is propelled by an ion engine and engineers have put the
spacecraft on a course to be captured in the gravitational field of Vesta.
They expect to hear confirmation from the satellite on Saturday that it
is safely circling the rock.
Initially, Dawn will be about 16,000km (9,900 miles) from the asteroid,
but this distance will be reduced over time.
"We would like to get as low as possible but if we crash Dawn,
Nasa would understandably be very angry at us," Principal Investigator
Chris Russell told BBC News.
Asteroids can tell us about the earliest days of the Solar System.
These wandering rocks are often described as the rubble that was left over
after the planets proper had formed.
Vesta and Ceres should make for interesting subjects. They are both
evolved bodies - objects that have heated up and started to separate into
distinct layers.
Surface detail
"We think that Vesta has a metal core in the centre - an iron core
- and then silicate rock around it," explained Dr Russell.
"And then, sometime in its history, it got banged on the bottom
and a lot of material was liberated. Some of this material gets pulled into the
Earth's atmosphere. One in 20 meteorites seen to fall to Earth has been
identified with Vesta," he added.
Ceres, which, at 950km in diameter, is by far the largest and most
massive body in the asteroid belt, probably did not evolve as much as Vesta.
Scientists think it likely that it retains a lot of water, perhaps in a
band of ice deep below the surface.
Dawn's quest at Vesta over the coming months will be to map the
asteroid's surface. The probe carries instruments to detect the mineral and
elemental abundances in its rocks. It will be looking for evidence of
geological processes such as mountain building and rifting. The team is keen to
understand how Vesta's surface has been remodelled over time by impacts and
even lava flows.
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