Vesta
The second-largest body in the asteroid belt, with a surface shaped by giant impacts.
NASA, ESA, CSA, STScI; J. DePasquale, A. Koekemoer, A. Pagan (STScI) (CC BY 4.0)
A failed planet: a world with a core, a mantle and a crust, and the source of meteorites that land on Earth.
Vesta is a differentiated protoplanet: it has an iron core, a rocky mantle and a basaltic crust, like the rocky planets. A huge impact basin, Rheasilvia, dominates its southern hemisphere.
Many meteorites that fall on Earth (the HED group) are thought to come from Vesta. NASA’s Dawn spacecraft orbited it in 2011 and 2012 before moving on to Ceres.
Fonti di dati
Gli strumenti e le lezioni utilizzano modelli semplificati solo per l’apprendimento, non devono essere utilizzati per la navigazione, la pianificazione delle missioni o qualsiasi decisione operativa. I certificati sono gratuiti e non accreditati. Leggi il disclaimer sui contenuti educativi