Dawn approaches Vesta, Approach phase, 3 May to 16 July 2011 Options

[stevesliva]

Nice. Watch out Miranda... this place may have more lumps.

[Bjorn Jonsson]

Dawn's images are now definitely better than HST's.

It now seems pretty certain that Vesta's shape is more irregular and lumpy than Miranda's (the earlier images strongly hinted at this). The shape is probably not 'jagged' as seemed possible from the June 1 images but the overall shape is still remarkably irregular for such a big body.

I get the impression that we are seeing both topographic shading and albedo features but this will not become clear until higher resolution images are obtained (a rotation movie from recent images might reveal more about this though).

[mchan]

Please, sir, I want some more.

[Explorer1]

End of the drought! Is the south pole visible from this point? We may already be seeing the big impact.

[Phil Stooke]

Thanks, Dawn team! Much appreciated!

Phil

[Greg Hullender]

I still think it's a good idea, when these photos get posted, to share them on Facebook. And encourage your friends to 1) "like" the camera and 2) "share" the camera.

http://www.facebook.com/dawn.framing.camera

Yes, it's up from just 24 friends to 217 since Emily first proposed it, but sending a consistent message always helps. And it still seems this is just a tiny fraction of all the people we ought to be able to reach.

--Greg

[elakdawalla]

I just want to point out that it's really bizarre that this photo, from a JPL mission, has been released on the imaging team's website but is nowhere to be found on the Dawn mission site or in Photojournal. JPL is usually so together and organized, everything shows up everywhere nearly simultaneously, so this is really anomalous. However it got out, I'm very happy! There's still not a lot to see, just enough to see that there's a lot more to be seen....

[antipode]

Wow

Where is the axis of rotation in that image? I get the impression that the south pole is NOT visible in that image if I compare it to the Hubble shots.
If not, that's a truly gigantic 'lump' on the limb, and signs of more 'lumps' around the equator?

Perhaps I'm reading to much into the image. This is going to be good that's for sure.

When you think about it - this is a brand new TYPE of object, a rocky 500km-ish diameter potato. What is Proteus made of - is it icy or rocky? That's the only thing I can think of to compare this to...

P

[Stu]

Little bit of sharpening n'stuff...



My, that's a freaky screaming-monkey-being-tortured-in-a-lab face top right, isn't it..?

[Hungry4info]

What is Proteus made of - is it icy or rocky?

Not that we know for certain, but it's almost surely icy, considering where it formed in the solar system.

[Phil Stooke]

Don't sharpen too much, Stu - that image had already been sharpened. The unsharpened version is now on the Dawn website... so you were sharpening the artifacts of sharpening, which is never a good idea!

Still, a pretty scary monkey, as you say.

Phil

[Stu]

Thanks Phil, wasn't claiming it was that scientific - leave that to you guys! - I just thought it brought out the face quite strikingly.

[Paolo]

Where is the axis of rotation in that image? I get the impression that the south pole is NOT visible in that image if I compare it to the Hubble shots.

if you look at the movie released earlier last week, you will see that the lump at bottom left seem to be the central peak of the southern polar crater and you will get a sense of the orientation of the spin axis

[antipode]

Well yes Paolo, but I can't get that to accord with the Hubble rotation movie, which shows Vesta rotating around its short axis if I remember, and where the central peak of the southern crater seems to sit nicely at the south pole (like its an oblate spheroid), whereas this seems, if that lump is the central peak of the south pole crater, to suggest that Vesta is a prolate spheroid (surely not)?

Edit: Ok, I just watched the first video again, and I see what you mean, I'll wait a few more days like the rest of us!


P

[ElkGroveDan]

I bet the gravity models will come up with some really wild mass-distribution for this big chunky-mess. We might even expect Dawn to have a "bumpy" ride in the lowest orbits. And by "bumpy" I mean large observable orbit perturbations caused by unevenly distributed mass.