4 Vesta

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4 Vesta is one of the largest asteroids in the Solar System, residing in the asteroid belt between the orbits of Mars and Jupiter. It was discovered by Heinrich Wilhelm Olbers on March 29, 1807, and is named after Vesta, the virgin goddess of home and hearth from Roman mythology. Vesta is unique among asteroids for its differentiated structure, similar to that of terrestrial planets, which includes a crust, mantle, and core.

Characteristics

Vesta is notable for its large size and mass, making it the second-largest and second-most-massive body in the asteroid belt after the dwarf planet Ceres. It has an irregular shape, with its equatorial diameter being larger than its polar diameter, a characteristic attributed to its rapid rotation period of about 5.34 hours.

The surface of Vesta is characterized by a large number of craters, including the massive Rheasilvia basin at its south pole, which is one of the largest impact craters in the Solar System. This crater is believed to be the source of a large family of meteorites known as the HED meteorites (howardites, eucrites, and diogenites), which have a composition similar to Vesta's surface and provide valuable insights into the asteroid's geological history.

Exploration

Vesta has been studied extensively by ground-based telescopes and space missions. The most significant of these missions was NASA's Dawn mission, which orbited Vesta from July 2011 to September 2012. Dawn provided detailed images and data on Vesta's topography, composition, and history, confirming its differentiation and revealing its complex geological past.

Significance

Vesta's differentiated structure and the presence of a basaltic surface make it an object of interest for studying the early Solar System's formation and evolution processes. Its large size and the clarity with which it can be observed from Earth also make it a popular object of study among astronomers.

See also

• Asteroid belt
• Ceres
• Meteorite
• Solar System