APOD: Vesta Trek: A Digital Model of Vesta... (2015 Apr 21)

Comments and questions about the APOD on the main view screen.
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APOD: Vesta Trek: A Digital Model of Vesta... (2015 Apr 21)

Post by APOD Robot » Tue Apr 21, 2015 4:11 am

Image Vesta Trek: A Digital Model of Asteroid Vesta

Explanation: You can explore asteroid Vesta. Recently, NASA's robotic spaceship Dawn visited Vesta, the second largest object in our Solar System's main asteroid belt, which lies between Mars and Jupiter. During a year-long stopover, Dawn's cameras photographed Vesta's entire surface, documenting all of the minor planet's major mountains and craters. These images have now been combined into a digital model that allows anyone with a full-featured browser to fly all around Vesta, virtually, and even zoom in on interesting surface features, by just dragging and clicking. If desired, the initially flat 2D map can be wrapped into a nearly spherical object by clicking on the 3D icon at the bottom. Dawn departed Vesta in 2012 and is now just beginning to photograph and explore the mysteries of the largest object in the asteroid belt: dwarf-planet Ceres.

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Tszabeau

Re: APOD: Vesta Trek: A Digital Model of Vesta... (2015 Apr

Post by Tszabeau » Tue Apr 21, 2015 12:21 pm

It's nice to see that Flava Flav has a crater named in his honor.

Thwack328

Re: APOD: Vesta Trek: A Digital Model of Vesta... (2015 Apr

Post by Thwack328 » Tue Apr 21, 2015 4:35 pm

For anyone else wondering why clicking a feature name doesn't do what the tour says, try using the middle mouse button.

parvatidev

Re: APOD: Vesta Trek: A Digital Model of Vesta... (2015 Apr

Post by parvatidev » Tue Apr 21, 2015 6:50 pm

Anyone know any hypotheses about why the swirl marks at the opposite ends of the globe go in different directions? It is as though a thick molten object was being twisted in opposite directions at the two ends.

XyrcesFenol

Re: APOD: Vesta Trek: A Digital Model of Vesta... (2015 Apr

Post by XyrcesFenol » Tue Apr 21, 2015 8:11 pm

Hm, the tree-four streaks or vallies that goes around the center "belly" from appr angles 1-100 when rotating Vesta, is that marks from a collition where Vesta did rotade against some other big stuff?

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Re: APOD: Vesta Trek: A Digital Model of Vesta... (2015 Apr

Post by Ron-Astro Pharmacist » Tue Apr 21, 2015 8:12 pm

Click to play embedded YouTube video.
I just looked at this for the first time though Bystander posted it some time ago Asterisk's "Dawn: Journey to the Asteroid Belt". Thanks for posting it and all those at JPL-Caltech for their amazing effort to put it and the music together. :clap:

Together with today's APOD – I feel like I know Vesta's exterior "like an old friend" now. Well – at least like I know their "personalities". :oops: Getting to know Vesta's "inner self" is another story. Hopefully that day may be in my future - though it could depend on an enhanced NASA budget should the spots on Ceres turn out to be something quite interesting.

Guess I shouldn't hang my hat on a wing and a prayer. Doris Day sang it best - Que Sera, Sera in "The Man Who Knew Too Much". I'll let you all find that video or watch the movie yourselves. :wink:
Make Mars not Wars

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Re: APOD: Vesta Trek: A Digital Model of Vesta... (2015 Apr

Post by DavidLeodis » Wed Apr 22, 2015 7:29 pm

I am wondering if there is a particular reason why the name of almost every feature ends with "a" and how were the names selected :?:

Edit added later. On managing to get some tools to work that didn't seem to do so earler I've found that all of the names that I tried were Roman origin and most seemed to be names of Vestal Virgins :wink:. I had found that I could not get most tools to work using IE11 but on trying FireFox the few I tried did work. :?

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