Dec 9, 2011: NASA's Dawn spacecraft spent the last four years voyaging to asteroid Vesta – and may have found a planet.
Vesta was discovered over two hundred years ago but, until Dawn, has been seen only as an indistinct blur and considered little more than a large, rocky body. Now the spacecraft's instruments are revealing the true complexity of this ancient world.
"We're seeing enormous mountains, valleys, hills, cliffs, troughs, ridges, craters of all sizes, and plains," says Chris Russell, Dawn principal investigator from UCLA. "Vesta is not a simple ball of rock. This is a world with a rich geochemical history. It has quite a story to tell!"
Read more >> http://science.nasa.gov/science-news/science-at-nasa/2011/09dec_vestaplanet/
