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A NASA spacecraft headed for the asteroid Vesta has snapped its first photograph of the giant space rock, an image that will help fine-tune its approach, NASA officials say.
The new image of Vesta was taken by the framing cameras onboard NASA's Dawn spacecraft on May 3, when the probe was approximately 752,000 miles (1.2 million kilometers) away from the asteroid. The space rock appears as a small, bright pearl against a background of stars. [Dawn spacecraft's first Vesta photo]
"After plying the seas of space for more than a billion miles, the Dawn team finally spotted its target," said Carol Raymond, Dawn's deputy principal investigator at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif. "This first image hints of detailed portraits to come from Dawn's upcoming visit."
Vesta is the second largest asteroid in the solar system. It is located in the asteroid belt between the orbits of Mars and Jupiter. Dawn is expected to enter into orbit around Vesta on July 16, when the asteroid is about 117 million miles (188 million km) from Earth. [Gallery: Asteroid Vesta and NASA's Dawn Spacecraft]
An asteroid revealed
Scientists are keen to study Vesta, which is also known as a protoplanet, because it is a large body that almost formed into a planet.
At 330 miles (530 km) wide, Vesta is the second-biggest object in the main asteroid belt (only the asteroid Ceres, which is also classified as a dwarf planet, is larger). Vesta also appears to have layers – a core, mantle and crust – just as planets such as Earth, Venus and Mars do.
The new image of Vesta was taken by the framing cameras onboard NASA's Dawn spacecraft on May 3, when the probe was approximately 752,000 miles (1.2 million kilometers) away from the asteroid. The space rock appears as a small, bright pearl against a background of stars. [Dawn spacecraft's first Vesta photo]
"After plying the seas of space for more than a billion miles, the Dawn team finally spotted its target," said Carol Raymond, Dawn's deputy principal investigator at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif. "This first image hints of detailed portraits to come from Dawn's upcoming visit."
Vesta is the second largest asteroid in the solar system. It is located in the asteroid belt between the orbits of Mars and Jupiter. Dawn is expected to enter into orbit around Vesta on July 16, when the asteroid is about 117 million miles (188 million km) from Earth. [Gallery: Asteroid Vesta and NASA's Dawn Spacecraft]
An asteroid revealed
Scientists are keen to study Vesta, which is also known as a protoplanet, because it is a large body that almost formed into a planet.
At 330 miles (530 km) wide, Vesta is the second-biggest object in the main asteroid belt (only the asteroid Ceres, which is also classified as a dwarf planet, is larger). Vesta also appears to have layers – a core, mantle and crust – just as planets such as Earth, Venus and Mars do.