NASA Dawn Reaches Vesta

Get used to hearing the name Vesta. It’s one of the largest asteroids in our solar system’s asteroid belt, a wide area of spinning rocks located between Mars and Jupiter. After four years of slow and steady travel, NASA’s Dawn space probe finally reached the orbit of the big spinning rock, also known as a protoplanet.

Since June it has been sending back pictures of ever-increasing resolution as the probe approached its destination. Scientists are hoping to learn about the early formation of the solar system by studying asteroids in orbit. And Vesta may just be a target for manned spaceflight, now that a return trip to the moon seems to have been scrubbed.

Dawn reached Vesta’s orbit on July 16. It will spend one year circling the rock learning all it can before heading to the dwarf planet Ceres — also in the asteroid belt — next July. Dawn, which launched in September 2007, is on track to become the first spacecraft to orbit two solar system destinations beyond Earth.

For the next couple of months, Vesta is actually visible with the naked eye from Earth. It’s the brightest asteroid in the night sky. Just look in the tail-end of the constellation Capricorn, a little northeast of Neptune.

Vesta was spotted in 1807 and is the fourth asteroid discovery, made by German doctor Heinrich Olbers at his private observatory in Bremen, Germany. It is named after the Roman goddess of the hearth.

To celebrate this milestone, NASA is encouraging citizen scientists to throw Vesta Fiestas all over the country Aug. 5-7.

It took the Dawn space probe four years to reach Vesta because it used an ion propulsion system to power the craft. This type of propulsion is known as patient propulsion because it starts slow and builds speed over time. It requires solar energy to activate the fuel, in this case Xenon. This allows Dawn to perform like a bigger engine but still have the maneuverability to stay in low orbit over Vesta before dashing to Ceres, which was re-classified a dwarf planet along side Pluto in 2007.

“Today, we celebrate an incredible exploration milestone as a spacecraft enters orbit around an object in the main asteroid belt for the first time,” NASA Administrator Charles Bolden said. “Dawn’s study of the asteroid Vesta marks a major scientific accomplishment and also points the way to the future destinations where people will travel in the coming years. President Obama has directed NASA to send astronauts to an asteroid by 2025, and Dawn is gathering crucial data that will inform that mission.” — NASA Chief Administrator, Charlie Bolden