July 11, 2016 - Vesta’s Amazing Technicolor Dream Coat
Vesta’s Amazing Technicolor Dream Coat This may look like a rainbow-hued asteroid, but these brilliant colors were assigned to highlight subtle differences in Vesta’s surface composition. Material thrown out from impact craters—seen in red—is different from the surrounding material; likewise, green reveals an abundance of iron. Vesta is the second-most massive object in the asteroid belt and is the source of a large number of meteorites that have fallen to Earth. NASA’s Dawn spacecraft was launched in 2007 and entered orbit around Vesta five years ago this week. After spending a year orbiting Vesta, Dawn reignited its novel ion engine and departed for the dwarf planet Ceres, arriving in March 2015. It is the first spacecraft to successfully enter orbit around two different target worlds in our solar system.
Image credit: NASA / JPL-Caltech / UCLA / MPS / DLR / IDA / PSI
Weekly Calendar
July 11-17, 2016
Holidays - Sky Events - Space History
Monday 11
First Qtr Moon 8:52 PM ET
1962: NASA selects lunar orbit rendezvous method for lunar landings
1969: X-24A lifting body rolled out for first time
1979: Skylab reenters atmosphere
Tuesday 12
1966: First glide test of M2-F2 lifting body
2000: Zvezda Service Module launched to ISS
2001: STS-104 Atlantis launched
Wednesday 13
Moon at apogee
1995: STS-70 Discovery launched
Thursday 14
Mars 8° south of Moon
1965: Mariner 4 completes first successful flyby of Mars
1967: Surveyor 4 launched
2015: New Horizons makes first ever Pluto flyby
Friday 15
1943: Jocelyn Bell Burnell born
1975: Apollo-Soyuz Test Project (Apollo 18) launched, last Apollo mission
2004: Aura satellite launched
2009: STS-127 Endeavour launched
2012: Soyuz TMA-05M launched carrying ISS Expedition 32/33 crew
Saturday 16
Saturn 3° south of Moon
Mercury 0.5° north of Venus
1969: Apollo 11 launched
1994: First fragment of Comet Shoemaker-Levy 9 impacts Jupiter
2011: Dawn spacecraft enters orbit around Vesta
Sunday 17
1850: John Adams Whipple takes first stellar photograph (Vega)
1970: Final HL-10 lifting body flight
1975: Apollo-Soyuz dock in orbit
1984: Soyuz T-12 launched, 100th human space flight