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

Meteors, Asteroids, and Other Terrifying Things:

In the image pictured here, the dots stand for the various objects that populate the inner solar system…comets, asteroids, and the like. The orange dots are the larger global killers. The blue dots are smaller objects that would only cause local devastation. The Earth’s orbit is pictured in green.

As many of you already know, on Friday February 15, 2013 a meteor blasted into the Earth’s atmosphere and broke apart over Russia, releasing nearly 500 kilotons of energy. The energy released by this explosion is equal to about 30 Hiroshima bombs. The shockwave created by the event injured more than 1,000 people and blew out the windows in more than 100,000 homes (note: this figure does not include schools, hospitals, or office buildings).

On Thursday February 21, scientists confirmed that fragments of the meteor had been recovered. Although the initial size of the object is estimated at about 55 feet (17 meters), and nearly 10,000 tons, the largest fragment is just 7 millimeters. Fortunately, the meteor"s the collisions with the atmosphere (coupled with its fiery dive to Earth) caused it to fragment and break apart into tiny pieces. None the less, this meteor was a fairly sizable object. One seemingly reasonable question I’ve often heard repeated is, “why didn’t we see it coming?”

As you can imagine, it"s never THAT easy. Find out why at: http://www.fromquarkstoquasars.com/meteors-asteroids-and-other-terrifying-things/

Image Credit: NASA.JPL