NASA's Dawn Spacecraft Reveals Details of Giant Asteroid Vesta

4 Vesta - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Vesta, formally designated 4 Vesta, is one of the largest asteroids, with a mean diameter of about 530 kilometres (330 mi).^[1]

[...]

NASA's Dawn spacecraft entered orbit around Vesta on July 16, 2011 for a planned one-year exploration, and what is known about Vesta will be refined and extended as data from Dawn is received, analyzed and published.

Source: 4 Vesta - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

'As the Asteroid Turns' - YouTube

See asteroid Vesta spin before your very eyes. In this movie, strung together from a series of images provided by the framing camera on NASA's Dawn spacecraft, we see a full rotation of Vesta, which occurs over the course of roughly five hours. These images were obtained on July 24, 2011, from a distance of about 3,200 miles (5,200 kilometers).

Source: 'As the Asteroid Turns' - YouTube

NASA - New NASA Dawn Visuals Show Vesta's 'Color Palette'

Vesta appears in a splendid rainbow-colored palette in new images obtained by NASA's Dawn spacecraft. The colors, assigned by scientists to show different rock or mineral types, reveal Vesta to be a world of many varied, well-separated layers and ingredients. Vesta is unique among asteroids visited by spacecraft to date in having such wide variation, supporting the notion that it is transitional between the terrestrial planets -- like Earth, Mercury, Mars and Venus -- and its asteroid siblings.

In images from Dawn's framing camera, the colors reveal differences in the rock composition associated with material ejected by impacts and geologic processes, such as slumping, that have modified the asteroid's surface. [...]

Source: NASA - New NASA Dawn Visuals Show Vesta's 'Color Palette'

Dawn Mission: Mission

Dawn, as a mission belonging to NASA’s Discovery Program, delves into the unknown, drives new technology innovations, and achieves what's never been attempted before. In Dawn’s case, it is orbiting  one member of the main asteroid belt, Vesta, before heading to gather yet more data at a second, Ceres. [...]

Source: Dawn Mission: Mission

Animation of Dawn's Visit to Vesta - YouTube

Source: Animation of Dawn's Visit to Vesta - YouTube

Dawn Approaches Asteroid Vesta Video NASA - YouTube

Source: Dawn Approaches Asteroid Vesta Video NASA - YouTube

Related

• Asteroid Vesta Not An Asteroid After All : Discovery News
• Giant Asteroid vesta images reveal an object 'more like a planet' | Mail Online
• Rainbow Map of Giant Asteroid Shows Planet-Like Features | Wired Science | Wired.com
• Asteroids : Videos : Science Channel
• How NASA's Dawn Asteroid Mission Works (Infographic) | Asteroids & Comets | NASA Dawn Mission & Asteroids Vesta, Ceres | Space.com
• NASA Spacecraft Shows Giant Asteroid Vesta Like Never Before | NASA's Dawn Spacecraft | Asteroid Vesta & Ceres | Space.com
• Photos: Asteroid Vesta and NASA's Dawn Spacecraft | Asteroids & Comets | Vesta: Second Largest Asteroid, NASA Dawn Mission | Space.com
• Rainbow of Colors Reveal Asteroid Vesta as More Like a Planet
• Vrooming over Vivid Vestan Vistas in Vibrant 3 D – Video

Water Ice on Asteriod

Scientists find water-ice and organic material on asteroid

Scientists have for the first time detected water-ice and organic compounds on an asteroid, a discovery which may offer insights into how life started on Earth.

They detected a significant amount of ice on a large asteroid called 24 Themis, which lies between Mars and Jupiter.

Collected from: BBC World Service - News - Scientists find water-ice and organic material on asteroid

Asteroid

Asteroids, sometimes called minor planets or planetoids, are small Solar System bodies in orbit around the Sun, especially in the inner Solar System; they are smaller than planets but larger than meteoroids. The term "asteroid" has historically been applied primarily to minor planets of the inner Solar System, as the outer Solar System was poorly known when it came into common usage. The distinction between asteroids and comets is made on visual appearance: Comets show a perceptible coma while asteroids do not.

Collected from: Asteroid - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Asteroid coated with ice suggests ingredients for life came from space

Asteroid 24 Themis and two small fragments resulting from an impact more than 1bn years ago. Scientists were surprised to find ice and organic chemicals on the asteroid's surface. Artist's impression: Gabriel Pérez/Servicio MultiMedia

The discovery supports the idea that asteroids may have brought plentiful supplies of water and organic material to Earth in the distant past and so set the stage for the emergence of life.

Two independent groups confirmed the composition of the asteroid's surface after observing the 200km-wide rock using Nasa's Infrared Telescope Facility (IRTF) which sits on the summit of Mauna Kea in Hawaii.

Collected from: Asteroid coated with ice suggests ingredients for life came from space | Science | guardian.co.uk

themis_hielo.mov

Universum2010 — May 02, 2010 — (24) Themis is a 200 km wide -- and hence one of the largest -- asteroids in the main belt between the orbits of Mars and Jupiter. Recent observations show, that its complete surface is frosted with water ice, containing a number of additional carbon-based organic compounds. Themis has small "moons" with cometary activity whose tails are thought to be formed by dust and the evaporation of ice. Animation credits: Gabriel Pérez, IAC

Collected from: YouTube - themis_hielo.mov

Discovery of asteroid water hints at oceans' origins

Scientists from the University of Central Florida (UCF) have detected a thin layer of water ice and organic molecules on the surface of the asteroid 24 Themis, a finding that adds weight to the theory that Earth's oceans resulted from an ancient asteroid impact. The unexpected findings are to be published in Nature.

"What we've found suggests that an asteroid like this one may have hit Earth and brought our planet its water," mused UCF Physics Professor Humberto Campins, the study's lead author. Some scientists have previously suggested that asteroids brought water to Earth after the planet formed dry and the salts and water that have been found in some meteorites do support this theory.

Collected from: Discovery of asteroid water hints at oceans' origins

Sources:

1. BBC World Service - News - Scientists find water-ice and organic material on asteroid
2. Asteroid - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
3. Asteroid coated with ice suggests ingredients for life came from space | Science | guardian.co.uk
4. YouTube - themis_hielo.mov
5. Discovery of asteroid water hints at oceans' origins

Related:

1. Water Ice Found on the Surface of an Asteroid for the First Time: Scientific American
2. BBC News - Asteroid Themis has 'frosted surface'
3. Ice Discovered on Asteroid, Suggests Earth’s Oceans Came From Space | Wired Science | Wired.com
4. (24) Themis

Russia plans to save Earth from collision with asteroid

clipped from www.guardian.co.uk

Russia's Armageddon plan to save Earth from collision with asteroid

Computer generated simulation of an asteroid strike on the earth 150m years ago. Photograph: Don Davis/AFP/Getty Images

clipped from www.thenorthernecho.co.uk

Scientists call for help to divert global killer

Could this happen in 2036?

NASA has calculated that the effect of the asteroid hitting the planet would be the equivalent of 65,000 nuclear explosions - at the same second.

Some scientists are already speculating that the asteroid should be classed as a potential "global killer" - a rock big enough to pose a possible extinction threat to mankind.

clipped from news.bbc.co.uk

Russia 'plans to stop asteroid'

The head of Russia's federal space agency has said it will work to divert an asteroid which will make several passes near the Earth from 2029.

Anatoly Perminov told the Voice of Russia radio service that the agency's science council would hold a closed meeting to discuss the issue.

Any eventual plan is likely to be an international collaboration, he said.

clipped from vids.myspace.com

Apophis

clipped from www.youtube.com

Asteroid Impact (HD)

clipped from www.federalspace.ru

clipped from www.roscosmos.ru

Head of the Russian Federal Space Agency
Anatoly N. Perminov

clipped from www.aerospaceweb.org

Collisions with Near Earth Objects

The asteroid Ida and its satellite Dactyl

Approximate frequency of impacts with different sizes of objects

Close approach of 99942 Apophis predicted in 2029

A representation of the Torino Impact Hazard Scale based on probability and energy of impact

Sources:

1. Russia's Armageddon plan to save Earth from collision with asteroid | World news | The Guardian
2. Scientists call for help to divert global killer (From The Northern Echo)
3. BBC News - Russia 'plans to stop asteroid'
4. Video Apophis van JC - MySpace Video
5. YouTube - Asteroid Impact (HD)
6. Russian Federal Space Agency - Roscosmos |
7. О руководителях агентства
8. Aerospaceweb.org | Ask Us - Collisions with Near Earth Objects

Related:

1. News from The Associated Press
2. Russia Plans to Save Earth From Rogue Asteroid; ‘No Nuclear Explosions,’ Space Chief Promises (Updated) | Danger Room | Wired.com
3. Russia considering sending spacecraft to knock asteroid off path and prevent Earth collision - Science - Canoe.ca
4. Russian space chief Anatoly Perminov's grim warning over asteroid that could 'kill millions'
5. Russia in secret plan to save Earth from asteroid: official
6. Russia Considering Mission To Deflect Apophis | Gizmodo Australia
7. 99942 Apophis - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
8. Russian Federal Space Agency - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
9. Anatoly Perminov - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
10. Asteroid Watch - jpl.nasa.gov

Desastrous Astroid Impact -- One-in-10 Change Per Century

Global warming is considered as a severe threat to the world, but the risk of a catastrophe caused by the impact of an astroid might be much bigger.

clipped from www.theatlantic.com The odds that a potentially devastating space rock will hit Earth this century may be as high as one in 10. So why isn’t NASA trying harder to prevent catastrophe? The Sky Is Falling clipped from www.theatlantic.com clipped from www.theatlantic.com A generation ago, the standard assumption was that a dangerous object would strike Earth perhaps once in a million years. By the mid-1990s, researchers began to say that the threat was greater: perhaps a strike every 300,000 years. This winter, I asked William Ailor, an asteroid specialist at The Aerospace Corporation, a think tank for the Air Force, what he thought the risk was. Ailor’s answer: a one-in-10 chance per century of a dangerous space-object strike. clipped from alfin2100.blogspot.com Billions for Global Warming--But Not One Cent for the Defense of Earth From Space clipped from www.theatlantic.com

Related:
Target Earth
The Sky Is Falling
Al Fin: Billions for Global Warming--But Not One Cent for the Defense of Earth From Space