Vesta in Dawn's Rear View Mirror

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: 2012-284 Sept. 11, 2012

Vesta in Dawn's Rear View Mirror

The full version of this story with accompanying images is at:
http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/news.php?release=2012-284&cid=release_2012-284

PASADENA, Calif. – NASA's Dawn mission is releasing two parting views of the giant
asteroid Vesta, using images that were among the last taken by the spacecraft as it
departed its companion for the last year.

The first set of images is a color-coded relief map of Vesta's northern hemisphere, from
the pole to the equator. It incorporates images taken just as Dawn began to creep over the
high northern latitudes, which were dark when Dawn arrived in July 2011. The other
image is a black-and-white mosaic that shows a full view of the giant asteroid, created by
synthesizing some of Dawn's best images.

"Dawn has peeled back the veil on some of the mysteries surrounding Vesta, but we're
still working hard on more analysis," said Christopher Russell, Dawn's principal
investigator at UCLA. "So while Vesta is now out of sight, it will not be out of mind."

These will be the last daily images during the cruise to Dawn's second destination, the
dwarf planet Ceres. Other images will be highlighted as findings are made. Other data
will be archived at http://pds.nasa.gov .

Dawn left Vesta on Sept. 4, 2012 PDT (Sept. 5, 2012 EDT). The spacecraft is using its
ion propulsion system to travel to Ceres. It is expected to arrive in early 2015.

JPL manages the Dawn mission for NASA's Science Mission Directorate in Washington.
Dawn is a project of the directorate's Discovery Program, managed by NASA's Marshall
Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Ala. The University of California at Los Angeles
(UCLA) is responsible for overall Dawn mission science. Orbital Sciences Corp. in
Dulles, Va., designed and built the spacecraft. The German Aerospace Center, the Max
Planck Institute for Solar System Research, the Italian Space Agency and the Italian
National Astrophysical Institute are international partners on the mission team. The
California Institute of Technology in Pasadena manages JPL for NASA.

For more information about Dawn, visit: http://www.nasa.gov/dawn and
http://dawn.jpl.nasa.gov .

-end-


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