Asteroid Vesta is being closely studied by scientists. The Dawn probe came as close as possible to the asteroid and became its artificial satellite. This is a significant event for the entire cosmonautics.
Asteroid Vesta is located in the zone of Jupiter and Mars. On average, Vesta is about 530 km in size. It is a fairly large asteroid with almost no twins. Vesta can reveal many secrets of space.
Craters on Vesta
The first images taken by the satellite on the asteroid showed that the asteroid has craters. These craters are quite unusual: they are located next to each other, and one crater is smaller than the last. Scientists have even dubbed the unusual holes the "snowman" for their striking resemblance.
The probe, approaching Vesta, never ceased to amaze the puzzled scientists. Previously, it was believed that the 460 km crater at the south pole of Vesta is the result of an asteroid collision with an object in space. At least that's what they decided by studying the images of the Hubble orbiting telescope.
It was assumed that the impact was so strong that some of the fragments went into the asteroid belt, some entered the space between the planets, and some received the Earth in the form of a meteor shower.
However, these images from the Dawn probe indicated the opposite: the craters on Vesta did not come from a collision with a celestial body, it is the result of something else. There are many oddities in the gigantic lowland: in the middle there is no conical elevation, but only a rounded hill. Odd are the long trenches that surround the asteroid's equator. There is no such thing on any cosmic body and there are no explanations for such a moment yet.
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Scientists are pondering who or what made such huge holes in Vesta. Scientists tend to think that the craters are of artificial origin. But it is not yet clear who they were made by, but for now experts are studying the gravity map and images from Dawn.
There is another mystery of Vesta. The asteroid reflects 40% of the sun's light, and some surfaces of Vesta generally shine brighter than others. It is the brightest asteroid. Space never ceases to amaze, and the deeper into space, the more mysteries.