NASA Dawn Spacecraft Reveals Secrets of Large Asteroid
Source: NASA RELEASE: 12-153 Excerpt: NASA's Dawn spacecraft has provided researchers with the first orbital analysis of the giant asteroid Vesta, yielding new insights into its creation and relation to the terrestrial planets and Earth's moon. Vesta now has been revealed as a special fossil of the early solar system … Vesta more closely resembles a small planet or Earth's moon than another asteroid. …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. …Data also confirm a distinct group of meteorites found on Earth did, as theorized, originate from Vesta. ...These objects account