NASA Dawn Spacecraft Reveals Secrets of Large Asteroid

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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 for about 6 percent of all meteorites seen falling on Earth. This makes the asteroid one of the largest single sources for Earth's meteorites. The finding also marks the first time a spacecraft has been able to visit the source of samples after they were identified on Earth… For more information about the Dawn mission, visit:www.nasa.gov/dawn

www.nasa.gov/home/hqnews/2012/may/HQ_12-153_New_Dawn_Vesta_Analysis.html

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