Vesta
Related Category: Astronomy: General
(vs´t), in astronomy, fourth asteroid to be discovered. It was found in 1807 by H. Olbers. It is the third largest asteroid, with a diameter of c.326 mi (525 km).
Vesta: meteorite fragment
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Fist-sized meteorite fragment that fell in western Australia in 1960 and is thought to have been ejected from the surface of the asteroid Vesta in a collision.
Vesta
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4 Vesta (ves'-tÉ™ (key), IPA ) is the second most massive asteroid in the asteroid belt, with a mean diameter of about 530 km and an estimated mass of 9% the mass of the entire asteroid belt.
Vesta is beginning to loom in Dawn's sights as the NASA spacecraft moves ever closer to its destination, with arrival in orbit around the asteroid scheduled for 16 July.
Vesta is the most geologically diverse of the large asteroids and the only known one with distinctive light and dark areas -- much like the face of our Moon.
Vesta now resides in the constellation Virgo, the virgin. Around 10:30 p.m. on March 1 (9:30 p.m. March 15, 8:30 p.m. April 1), the majestic maiden stands upright on your eastern horizon, stretching halfway to the summit of the sky.
Vesta. These two surface maps of the asteroid Vesta are derived from Hubble telescope images taken between November 28 and December 1, 1994 and show surface details as small as 35 miles across.
Vesta is a dry body that has been resurfaced by basaltic lava flows, and may have an early magma ocean like Earth's Moon.
Vesta
Catalogue No.: 4
Dimensions: 525km in diameter.
Density: 3.3g/cm cubed
Class: V
Rotation: 5.34 hours.
The largest of the V class asteroids (it is made of basaltic rock) and also one of the first discovered.
Vesta
An asteroid 500 km in diameter (P = 1325 days, a = 2.361 AU, e = 0.09, i = 7°.1). It is the brightest of all minor planets, at times approaching naked-eye visibility (mag 5.5). Rotation period 5h20m31s.665.
Vesta
Asteroids whose orbits have been determined carefully enough so that their position on the sky as a function of time can be predicted are assigned permanent numbers and names by the .
Vesta, like Ceres, has a diffrentiated interior. Vesta is almost but not quite spherical, and the IAU has deferred its decision as to whether or not it qualifies as a dwarf planet.
4 Vesta is the brightest of the asteroids. It is the only one that can reach the limit of naked-eye visibility, sixth magnitude.
After a gap of 38 years, 5 Astraea was discovered.
4 Vesta has been studied recently with HST (left). It is a particularly interesting asteroid in that it seems to have been differentiated into layers like the terrestrial planets.
Asteroid 4 Vesta, the brightest asteroid and the fourth largest. Vesta is the only asteroid that can be seen without a telescope (it is sixth magnitude).
The mass of Vesta was deduced by the German-born American astronomer Hans G. Hertz in 1966 from measurements of its perturbations on the orbit of 197 Arete.
Left to right: 4 Vesta, 1 Ceres, Earth's Moon.
To recover the asteroid, Carl Friedrich Gauss, then only 24 years old, developed a method of orbit determination from three observations.
^ a b For recent estimates of the masses of Ceres, 4 Vesta, 2 Pallas and 10 Hygiea, see the references in the infoboxes of their respective articles.
^ a b c Yeomans, Donald K. (July 13, 2006). "JPL Small-Body Database Browser".
Although none is visible to the naked eye, many can be seen at times with binoculars or small telescopes, including the four largest: (1) Ceres, (2) Pallas, (4) Vesta, and (10) Hygiea.
In late September 2007, NASA launched the DAWN spacecraft to explore the two largest asteroids, Ceres (about 960 km in diameter) and Vesta (520 km in diameter), for about six months at each asteroid.
El estatus de Ceres como el cuarto planeta fue puesto en duda sólo unos cuantos años más tarde, cuando Vesta y Juno (asteroides más pequeños) se encontraron en orbitas similares.
There is only one asteroid, Vesta, that is visible (just!) by the naked eye. Several may be seen through binoculars, but an ephemeris is necessary.
Very few asteroids, notably Vesta, are probably related to the rarest meteorite class of all: the achondrites. These asteroids appear to have an igneous surface composition like that of many lunar and terrestrial lava flows.
The three largest asteroids, Ceres, Pallas, and Vesta, have diameters of 940, 580, and 540 km, respectively. Only two dozen or so asteroids are more than 200 km across, and most are much smaller.
If the asteroids Ceres and Vesta, for example, could be observed at the same distance, Vesta would be the brighter of the two by roughly 10 percent.
Free Lecture -- The Early Solar System: Dawn at Vesta
In July 2011, the Dawn spacecraft will begin to orbit Vesta, the second most massive object in the asteroid belt.
The Dawn mission will rendezvous and orbit asteroids 4 Vesta and 1 Ceres. The main objectives are to learn about the asteroids' internal structure, density, shape, size, composition, mass, surface structure, craters, and magnetism.
The asteroids Ceres (left) and Vesta are the destinations for a spacecraft called Dawn, which is scheduled for launch in early July. The craft will arrive at Vesta in 2011, orbit for several weeks, then journey to Ceres, arriving in 2015.
The chart shows the paths of Venus and Vesta as seen to the east for a few days in February. The positions of Venus and Vesta on the 9th and 10th are marked. Stars to magnitude 8.5 are shown and labelled up to magnitude 8, without a decimal point.
A Piece of the Asteroid Vesta?
The meteorite shown on the right (Ref) was discovered in Western Australia in 1960.
It is interesting to note that, historically, the first four asteroids (1 Ceres, 2 Pallas, 3 Juno and 4 Vesta) were considered planets for several decades (their size was not accurately known at the time).
It will first travel to observe the asteroid Vesta. After collecting data from Vesta, Dawn will intercept with Ceres where it will observe its surface features and collect data about its chemical composition.
Harding found a third, Juno, on Septemer 1, 1804. Olbers found the fourth, Vesta, on March 29, 1807. Ceres, Pallas, Juno, and Vesta were much smaller than the other planets, but no-one worried about it for awhile.
V-type Asteroid - The asteroid Vesta, which is unique in having a reflectance spectra resembling those of basaltic lava flows
V/Vmax Test - A statistical method used to determine whether quasars have changed over time ...
Hestia -- In Greek mythology, one of the twelve Olympian gods. Sister of Zeus and goddess of the hearth and home (Roman name, Vesta).
Hubble -- Edwin Powell Hubble (1889-1953) American astronomer known for seminal work in modern cosmology.
Discovered several comets, searched for missing planet between Mars and Jupiter forecasted by Bode’s Law and discovered Pallas and Vesta suggesting these were fragments of the missing planet, formulated Olber’s Paradox.
Kopernik Astronomical Society - Vestal, New York
Mid-Hudson Astronomy Association - New Paltz, New York
Mohawk Valley Astronomical Society - Clinton, New York
Rensselaer Astrophysical Society - Troy, New York ...
Ceres, the largest Main-Belt asteroid, has been acknowledged by many astronomers as a dwarf planet. In addition, the next three largest asteroids in the Main Belt (Vesta, Pallas, and Hygeia) may also be "round enough" to be eventually classified as ...
Some missions are developed just to prove a technology. NASA's Deep Space 1 provided a successful test of highly-efficient ion engines which are now powering NASA's Dawn on its long journey to asteroid Vesta and the dwarf planet Ceres.
Eucrite: A common class of achondrite meteorites composed of pigeonite and plagioclase. These meteorites formed as basaltic flows on a parent body, probably asteroid 4 Vesta.
VLBI In radio astronomy, a system of two or more antennas placed several hundred or several thousand miles apart, which are operated together as an interferometer. [H76]
Vesta ...
Olbers' paradox (Why is the sky dark at night? or Why doesn't starlight make the night sky bright?) (1823), determined that Uranus is a planet, not a comet (1781), discovered Olbers's comet (1815), the asteroids #2 Pallas (1802) and #4 Vesta (1807), ...
An image of Aquarius shifted north shows part of the Circlet of Pisces and part of southern Pegasus. The planet Uranus and the asteroid Vesta also appear on the picture as of October 9, 2004: see the labelled image.
 See also: Asteroid, Earth, Planet, Orbit, Asteroids
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