NASA’s Dawn spacecraft unlocks secrets of giant asteroid

Image showing the south pole of the giant asteroid Vesta obtained by the framing camera on NASA's Dawn spacecraft

After becoming the first probe to enter orbit around an object in the main asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter in July 2011, NASA’s Dawn spacecraft has spent the last 10 months orbiting said object - the giant asteroid Vesta. During that period it has captured more than 20,000 images of Vesta and a multitude of data from different wavelengths of radiation. What it reveals is an asteroid that in many ways shares more in common with a small planet or Earth’s moon than it does with another asteroid.