Dawn at Vesta

[Romanus]

No - they WILL leave Ceres - planetary protection dictates that.

Thanks for the info--that is interesting. If Dawn proves as resilient as other JPL probes, and at least one extension is approved, her future is an open book.

[dtilque]

On the other hand it will be an object whose self-gravity has done more to make it round, and so some aspects of the early days of the solar system will be more concealed on Ceres than on Vesta.

Vesta's self-gravity made it round too. It's just that after it cooled and hardened, it had a collision which knocked off a significant fraction of its mass. Its gravity was not able to overcome the strength of the hardened rock.

[slang]

Planetary Society blog brings the latest Dawn update:

Dawn Journal: Bonus time at low altitude

A great story as usual, in Marc Rayman's rather unique style, with lots of links to previous updates.

[ToSeek]

Dawn Sees New Surface Features on Giant Asteroid

NASA's Dawn spacecraft has revealed unexpected details on the surface of the giant asteroid Vesta. New images and data highlight the diversity of Vesta's surface and reveal unusual geologic features, some of which were never previously seen on asteroids.

These results were discussed today at the Lunar and Planetary Science Conference at The Woodlands, Texas.

[publiusr]

Its one of the few objects that deserves its designation as a "minor planet."

[slang]

Planetary Society blog brings another Dawn update:

Dawn Journal: Saluting the Sun

[ToSeek]

Dawn Gets Extra Time to Explore Vesta

NASA's Dawn mission has received official confirmation that 40 extra days have been added to its exploration of the giant asteroid Vesta, the second most massive object in the main asteroid belt. The mission extension allows Dawn to continue its scientific observations at Vesta until Aug. 26, while still arriving at the dwarf planet Ceres at the same originally scheduled target date in February 2015.

"We are leveraging our smooth and successful operations at Vesta to provide for even more scientific discoveries for NASA and the world." said Robert Mase, Dawn project manager based at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif. "This extra time will allow us to extend our scientific investigation and learn more about this mysterious world."

The extension will not require any new funding, and will draw on financial reserves that have been carefully managed by the Dawn project. The flexibility provided by the spacecraft's use of efficient ion propulsion system allows it to maintain its originally planned Ceres arrival.

The extension allows for extra observations at Dawn's current low-altitude mapping orbit (average altitude 130 miles or 210 kilometers), which will now last until May 1. The additional time enables the gamma ray and neutron detector to build the best possible maps of the elemental composition of Vesta's surface and improve data for the gravity experiment, the two primary scientific investigations at the low-altitude orbit. The spacecraft's camera and spectrometer are also obtaining additional high-resolution images.

My impression is that this is the same extension as mentioned above, just officially noted. But I could be wrong.

[ToSeek]

Another update at the Planetary Society blog:

Rising from a happily long LAMO

The writeup makes it clear that there have been two 40-day extensions to Dawn's stay at Vesta, one because they didn't need the time they reserved for anomalies, and one because they figured out that the trip to Ceres is going to take 40 days less than they originally estimated. Both extensions were invested 100% in extending the low-altitude mapping orbit (LAMO).

[ToSeek]

NASA to Hold News Conference on Dawn Mission Results

PASADENA, Calif. -- NASA will host a news conference on Thursday, May 10, at 11 a.m. PDT (2 p.m. EDT) to present a new analysis of the giant asteroid Vesta using data from the agency's Dawn spacecraft.

The event will be held at NASA Headquarters in Washington, broadcast live on NASA Television and streamed on the agency's website. For NASA TV streaming video, downlink and scheduling information, visit: http://www.nasa.gov/ntv .

The event will also be streamed live on Ustream with a moderated chat available at:
http://www.ustream.com/nasajpl2 . Questions may also be asked via Twitter using the hashtag #asknasa .

The panelists for the briefing are:
-- Carol Raymond, Dawn deputy principal investigator, NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif.
-- Harry McSween, chair, Dawn surface composition working group, University of Tennessee, Knoxville
-- Vishnu Reddy, Dawn framing camera team member, Max Planck Institute for Solar System Research, Katlenburg-Lindau, Germany; and the University of North Dakota, Grand Forks
-- David O'Brien, Dawn participating scientist, Planetary Science Institute, Tucson, Ariz.
-- Maria Cristina De Sanctis, Dawn co-investigator and visible and infrared mapping spectrometer team lead, Italian National Institute for Astrophysics, Rome

[ToSeek]

NASA Dawn Mission Reveals Secrets of Large Asteroid

NASA's Dawn spacecraft has provided researchers with the first orbital analysis of the giant asteroid Vesta, yielding new insights into its creation and kinship with terrestrial planets and Earth's moon.

Vesta now has been revealed as a special fossil of the early solar system with a more varied, diverse surface than originally thought. Scientists have confirmed a variety of ways in which Vesta more closely resembles a small planet or Earth's moon than another asteroid. Results appear in today's edition of the journal Science.

"Dawn's visit to Vesta has confirmed our broad theories of this giant asteroid's history, while helping to fill in details it would have been impossible to know from afar," said Carol Raymond, deputy principal investigator at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif. "Dawn's residence at Vesta of nearly a year has made the asteroid's planet-like qualities obvious and shown us our connection to that bright orb in our night sky."

Scientists now see Vesta as a layered, planetary building block with an iron core - the only one known to survive the earliest days of the solar system. The asteroid's geologic complexity can be attributed to a process that separated the asteroid into a crust, mantle and iron core with a radius of approximately 68 miles (110 kilometers) about 4.56 billion years ago. The terrestrial planets and Earth's moon formed in a similar way

[antoniseb]

This is great stuff. I've been following the Dawn at Vesta mission fairly closely, but there is a lot of stuff in this presentation that I had no idea about.

[KaiYeves]

Woah. Cool!

[publiusr]

Nice to see things going better than expected for a change. Now, at the end of life, NEAR Shoemaker essentially docked with its asteroid.

Now, Ceres, doesn't have much in gravity, but DAWN has even less thrust--so how hard would it touch down at end of life--or would it crash? Be kept in orbit?

[djellison]

As has already been stated in this very thread - Dawn (and it's Dawn... not DAWN - it's not an acronym) WILL leave Ceres for planetary protection reasons.

It will not be touching down, orbiting, landing etc etc. Moreover - any impact speed would be at several hundred meters per second. It would be impossible to 'touch down'

[Jens]

As has already been stated in this very thread - Dawn (and it's Dawn... not DAWN - it's not an acronym) WILL leave Ceres for planetary protection reasons.

What is WILL an acronym for?

[kamaz]

Today's APOD shows a simulated flyover of Dawn over Vesta (render based on returned data). Stunning. http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap120514.html