Vesta....an Asteroid or a Planet?

reply to post by TheBlackDog
You haven't derailed anything and I appreciate the help. I hope we will be looking forward to what Dawn fines together, if not on this thread on another one. I am a whole lot more concerned with Vesta than Elenin. It will be exciting to see if they will try and move it in a new direction. That far out in Space is a safe place to try if they do.

Vesta is an asteroid. It is only around 350 miles in diameter, and is therefore far too small to be a planet.

Ceres is currently classed as a dwarf planet. It is not a brown dwarf. A brown dwarf is a failed STAR (not quite massive enough for nuclear fusion reactions to start in the core), and is therefore thousands of times larger than Ceres!

You are correct to say that the DAWN spacecraft is currently on a mission to visit Vesta and Ceres. However, it is incorrect to say that it was the fastest man made object ever to leave Earth. That prize goes to the NEW HORIZONS probe, which is currently on its way to Pluto.

reply to post by Mogget
People just pop on a thread without even reading all of it. Put a cork in it.

I wonder why there is such a sudden interest in these two asteroids? I have known of Ceres existence since I was young, and now slightly curious as to why Nasa etc have now decided to take a look at them.

Are they planning some future mission, where the asteroids are hollowed out to make some kind of space ark?

I mean, Nasa have been sending out probes since the early 70's, so why choose 2007 to send a probe to the asteroid belt.

I also see that the new horizons probe is now out beyond the orbit of uranus. This was launched in 2006 and yep that is pretty damn fast to get to where it is today.

There seems to be some interest in Pluto allright, and what with the new moon thats been discovered, you can't help but feel that somethings going on.

We have never clear imaged Pluto and it's system of moons and you have seen the fuzzy images of the two asteroids to date (before DAWN). What's going on is space exploration, to help fill the missing gaps of bodies in our solar system to better understand the elemental composition of each body, detect subtle variations in the gravity fields, and of course map the bodies with as many as 400 different wavelength ranges to help understand the origins and evolution of our solar system.

It's pretty clear why Vesta and Ceres are the chosen asteroids to study as they stand apart from the rest of the bodies in the main asteroid belt being much more massive. What may not be as known is that Vesta and Ceres are believed to be drastically different in composition, whereas Ceres is believed to be up to 25% composed of ice water while Vesta is more dense composed more of dense rock and mineral, and whalla! we know this because we have a sample from the surface Vesta composed of basaltic rock–frozen lava.



Visit the link for more explanation of our Vesta sample.

Originally posted by Illustronic
We have never clear imaged Pluto and it's system of moons and you have seen the fuzzy images of the two asteroids to date (before DAWN). What's going on is space exploration, to help fill the missing gaps of bodies in our solar system to better understand the elemental composition of each body, detect subtle variations in the gravity fields, and of course map the bodies with as many as 400 different wavelength ranges to help understand the origins and evolution of our solar system.

It's pretty clear why Vesta and Ceres are the chosen asteroids to study as they stand apart from the rest of the bodies in the main asteroid belt being much more massive. What may not be as known is that Vesta and Ceres are believed to be drastically different in composition, whereas Ceres is believed to be up to 25% composed of ice water while Vesta is more dense composed more of dense rock and mineral, and whalla! we know this because we have a sample from the surface Vesta composed of basaltic rock–frozen lava.



Visit the link for more explanation of our Vesta sample.

When I first heard about it on the radio, I was like "What ? A 530km long asteroid ? That's not true they turn spherical around 200km." Then they say it looks spherical. Ceres is more of actually a planet, but the way I see it is that if its almost 3 times the size of Vesta it oughtta be something more then a crappy asteroid.

The way I see it, resources + water = A okay. I predict there will be a small research lab there in 20 years, give or take 5 years.

Also Bramstone this one has an ion thrust so maybe that could be why. I heard the acceleration velocity of the dawn was about 4.3km/s I believe ? That's remarkable. I heard of a plasma fueled space craft that went that speed if not 10x that. It's not built yet or I'm not even sure if it's started, but I saw it on popular science front cover.