Dawn Obtains First Low Altitude Images of Vesta

MEDIA RELATIONS OFFICE
JET PROPULSION LABORATORY
CALIFORNIA INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY
NATIONAL AERONAUTICS AND SPACE ADMINISTRATION
PASADENA, CALIF. 91109 TELEPHONE 818-354-5011
http://www.jpl.nasa.gov

Jia-Rui Cook 818-354-0850
Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif.
jccook@jpl.nasa.gov

Image advisory: 2011-391 Dec. 21, 2011

Dawn Obtains First Low Altitude Images of Vesta

The full version of this story with accompanying images is at:
http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/news.cfm?release=2011-391&cid=release_2011-391

PASADENA, Calif. – NASA's Dawn spacecraft has sent back the first images of the
giant asteroid Vesta from its low-altitude mapping orbit. The images, obtained by the
framing camera, show the stippled and lumpy surface in detail never seen before, piquing
the curiosity of scientists who are studying Vesta for clues about the solar system's early
history.

At this detailed resolution, the surface shows abundant small craters, and textures such as
small grooves and lineaments that are reminiscent of the structures seen in low-resolution
data from the higher-altitude orbits. Also, this fine scale highlights small outcrops of
bright and dark material.

A gallery of images can be found online at:
http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/dawn/multimedia/gallery-index.html .

The images were returned to Earth on Dec. 13. Dawn scientists plan to acquire data in
the low-altitude mapping orbit for at least 10 weeks. The primary science objectives in
this orbit are to learn about the elemental composition of Vesta's surface with the gamma
ray and neutron detector and to probe the interior structure of the asteroid by measuring
the gravity field.

The Dawn mission to the asteroids Vesta and Ceres is managed by NASA's Jet
Propulsion Laboratory, a division of the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena,
for NASA's Science Mission Directorate, Washington. Dawn is a project of the
directorate's Discovery Program, managed by NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center in
Huntsville, Ala. UCLA is responsible for overall Dawn mission science. The Dawn
Framing Cameras have been developed and built under the leadership of the Max Planck
Institute for Solar System Research, Katlenburg-Lindau, Germany, with significant
contributions by DLR German Aerospace Center, Institute of Planetary Research, Berlin,
and in coordination with the Institute of Computer and Communication Network
Engineering, Braunschweig. The framing camera project is funded by the Max Planck
Society, DLR, and NASA/JPL.

More information about the Dawn mission is online at: http://www.nasa.gov/dawn and
http://dawn.jpl.nasa.gov .
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