Asteroid Vesta by NASA on The Commons Via Flickr: NASA's Dawn spacecraft, powered by ion engines, successfully explored two bodies in the main asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter: Vesta and Ceres. Arriving at the giant asteroid Vesta on July 16, 2011, Dawn mapped its geology, composition, cratering record, and more. It determined Vesta's interior structure by measuring its gravity field. Together, this data elucidated the formation and evolution of this small rocky world in the main asteroid belt. Dawn found a heavily cratered surface on Vesta, with a rough topography that is transitional between planets and asteroids. The Dawn mission confirmed that Vesta is the parent body of the howardite-eucrite-diogenite (HED) meteorites, via confident matches between lab-based measurements of HEDs and Dawn's measurements of the elemental composition of Vesta’s surface and its specific mineralogy. As NASA's Dawn spacecraft took off for its next destination, Ceres, in September 2012, this mosaic image brought together some of the best views the spacecraft had of the giant asteroid Vesta. The set of three craters known as the "snowman" can be seen at the top left. NASA Media Usage Guidelines Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/UCAL/MPS/DLR/IDA Image Number: PIA15678 Date: September 11, 2012
