28 March 2024 - Mission Day: 10345 - DOY: 088
PICK OF THE WEEK
 
Pick of The Week
 
 

Spotting Asteroid Vesta (January 25, 2008)


Hi-res TIF image (1.5M)

MPEG Movie: Large (4.7M)
Quicktime Movie: Large (9.2M), Small (3.2M)

Beginning late on January 16 2008 the asteroid Vesta appeared in the STEREO SECCHI COR2-A ("Ahead" spacecraft) images. Although a fairly small, whitish dot, it can be picked out in the lower-left corner, moving left-to-right noticeably slower than the star field that passes behind it. Vesta is the second most massive asteroid that we know of, about the size of the state of Arizona. It has a very complex surface that bears the scars of countless ancient impacts, some of which have left craters deep enough for astronomers to peer below the asteroid's crust and into the past. In fact, the NASA's Dawn mission launched in late 2007 to begin an 8-year, 3.2-billion-mile odyssey to explore Vesta in 2011 and Ceres, another asteroid, in 2015.


SOHO began its Weekly Pick some time after sending a weekly image or video clip to the American Museum of Natural History (Rose Center) in New York City. There, the SOHO Weekly Pick is displayed with some annotations on a large plasma display.

If your institution would also like to receive the same Weekly Pick from us for display (usually in Photoshop or QuickTime format), please send your inquiry to steele.hill@gsfc.nasa.gov.

 
 

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Last modification: July 27, 2020

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