[meteorite-list] NASA's Dawn Science Team Presents Early Science Results

From: Michael Murray <mikebevmurray_at_meteoritecentral.com>
Date: Wed, 12 Oct 2011 14:18:27 -0600
Message-ID: <9F8D39D9-989B-4CE2-8318-A64A08794025_at_gmail.com>

Ron and List,
Thanks as always Ron for posting these articles. I look at the
pictures of the mountain/central complex on the south polar region of
Vesta and can't help but wonder, could that "mountain" actually be a
rebound peak?
Mike in CO
On Oct 12, 2011, at 1:26 PM, Ron Baalke wrote:

>
> http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/news.cfm?release=2011-319
>
> NASA's Dawn Science Team Presents Early Science Results
> Jet Propulsion Laboratory
> October 12, 2011
>
> Scientists with NASA's Dawn mission are sharing with other scientists
> and the public their early information about the southern hemisphere
> of
> the giant asteroid Vesta. The findings were presented today at the
> annual meeting of the Geological Society of America in Minneapolis,
> Minn.
>
> Dawn, which has been orbiting Vesta since mid-July, has found that the
> asteroid's southern hemisphere boasts one of the largest mountains in
> the solar system. Other findings show that Vesta's surface, viewed by
> Dawn at different wavelengths, has striking diversity in its
> composition, particularly around craters. Science findings also
> include
> an in-depth analysis of a set of equatorial troughs on Vesta and a
> closer look at the object's intriguing craters. The surface appears to
> be much rougher than most asteroids in the main asteroid belt. In
> addition, preliminary dates from a method that uses the number of
> craters indicate that areas in the southern hemisphere are as young
> as 1
> billion to 2 billion years old, much younger than areas in the north.
>
> Scientists do not yet understand how all the features on Vesta's
> surface
> formed, but they did announce today, after analysis of northern and
> southern troughs, that results are consistent with models of fracture
> formation due to giant impact.
>
> Since July, the Dawn spacecraft has been spiraling closer and closer
> to
> Vesta, moving in to get better and better views of the surface. In
> early
> August, the spacecraft reached an orbital altitude of 1,700 miles
> (2,700
> kilometers) and mapped most of the sunlit surface, during survey
> orbit,
> with its framing camera and visible and infrared mapping spectrometer.
>
> That phase was completed in late August, and the spacecraft began
> moving
> in to what is known as High Altitude Mapping Orbit at about 420 miles
> (680 kilometers) above Vesta, which it reached on Sept. 29.
>
> An archive of the live news conference is available for viewing at:
> http://www.ustream.tv/nasajpl2 .
>
> The Dawn scientists also shared their findings at the recent European
> Planetary Science Congress and the Division of Planetary Sciences
> Joint
> Meeting 2011 in Nantes, France.
>
> Dawn launched in September 2007 and arrived at Vesta on July 15, 2011.
> Following a year at Vesta, the spacecraft will depart in July 2012 for
> the dwarf planet Ceres, where it will arrive in 2015.
>
> Dawn's mission to Vesta and Ceres is managed by the Jet Propulsion
> Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif., for NASA's Science Mission Directorate
> in
> Washington. JPL is a division of the California Institute of
> Technology
> in Pasadena. Dawn is a project of the directorate's Discovery Program,
> managed by NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Ala.
> UCLA
> is responsible for overall Dawn mission science. Orbital Sciences
> Corp.
> in Dulles, Va., designed and built the spacecraft. The German
> Aerospace
> Center, the Max Planck Institute for Solar System Research, the
> Italian
> Space Agency and the Italian National Astrophysical Institute are
> international partners on the mission team.
>
> For more information about the Dawn mission, visit:
> http://www.nasa.gov/dawn and http://dawn.jpl.nasa.gov . To follow the
> mission on Twitter, visit: http://www.twitter.com/NASA_Dawn .
>
> Priscilla Vega 818-354-1357
> Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif.
> priscilla.r.vega at jpl.nasa.gov
>
> 2011-319
>
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Received on Wed 12 Oct 2011 04:18:27 PM PDT