PIA17663: Vesta's Many Colors at Sextilia
 Target Name:  Vesta
 Is a satellite of:  Sol (our sun)
 Mission:  Dawn
 Spacecraft:  Dawn
 Instrument:  Framing Camera
 Product Size:  1451 x 866 pixels (w x h)
 Produced By:  JPL
 Full-Res TIFF:  PIA17663.tif (3.771 MB)
 Full-Res JPEG:  PIA17663.jpg (192.8 kB)

Click on the image above to download a moderately sized image in JPEG format (possibly reduced in size from original)

Original Caption Released with Image:

This colorful image from NASA's Dawn mission shows material northwest of the crater Sextilia on the giant asteroid Vesta. Sextilia, located around 30 degrees south latitude, is at the bottom right of this image.

The image was taken by Dawn's framing camera from September to October 2011.

In this image, the entire color spectrum of Vesta becomes visible. While a large asteroid impact probably brought the black material, the red material may have been melted by the impact.

The composite image was created by assigning ratios of color information collected from several color filters in visible light and near-infrared light to maximize subtle differences in lithology (the physical characteristics of rock units, such as color, texture and composition). The color scheme pays special attention to the iron-rich mineral pyroxene.

The Dawn mission to Vesta and Ceres is managed by NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, a division of the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena, for NASA's Science Mission Directorate, Washington. The University of California, Los Angeles, is responsible for overall Dawn mission science. The Dawn framing cameras were developed and built under the leadership of the Max Planck Institute for Solar System Research, Katlenburg-Lindau, Germany, with significant contributions by DLR German Aerospace Center, Institute of Planetary Research, Berlin, and in coordination with the Institute of Computer and Communication Network Engineering, Braunschweig. The framing camera project is funded by the Max Planck Society, DLR and NASA.

More information about Dawn is online at http://www.nasa.gov/dawn and http://dawn.jpl.nasa.gov.

Image Credit:
NASA/JPL-Caltech/UCLAMPS/DLR/IDA

Image Addition Date:
2013-12-16