Dawn arrives at Vesta

Everything else
1

The Dawn probe, launched in 2007, has just arrived in orbit around Vesta, the second-largest asteroid (530 km diameter) in the big asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter.

Vesta portrait from 2,500 km distance
Slightly different perspective
Movie composed of a series of photos

Next stop for Dawn will be Ceres, the largest asteroid, in 2015.

2

Well, that’s one less possible site for my summer house. Seems a bit barren. Though I’m betting land is cheap.

3

Ceres is supposed to have water! Might be a bit frozen, though…

4

The parallel grooves are where I scratched my nuts with it.

5

No sign of giant space worms.