Astronomy Picture of the Day: 12/19/13 - New Look at Old Vesta Images

The Dawn Spacecraft is a trailblazer in every sense of the term. Over the course of the last few years, it has offered us valuable insight into the inner workings of several non-planetary bodies in our solar system (proving that size doesn"t necessarily always matter). Now, as it makes its way toward Ceres - a dwarf planet that can be found in the asteroid belt (between Mars and Jupiter) - scientists decided to take another look at some of the images it beamed back to Earth during its foray with a large asteroid from 2011 to 2012.

The new look at the original images of Vesta was led by a team of researchers from the Max Planck Institute for Solar System Research. Using the images that were gathered by Dawn"s framing camera, the team analyzed the surface features in unprecedented detail by ascribing specific colors to wavelengths of light noted on Vesta. This granted them with the opportunity to make out details that would not be discernible to the naked eye (In the images, each pixel is representative of 200 feet [60 meters]).

References & Further Reading: http://www.fromquarkstoquasars.com/apod-vesta/

Larger Image: http://www.fromquarkstoquasars.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/12/vesta.jpg