PDS logoPlanetary Data System
PDS Information
Find a Node - Use these links to navigate to any of the 8 publicly accessible PDS Nodes.

This bar indicates that you are within the PDS enterprise which includes 6 science discipline nodes and 2 support nodes which are overseen by the Project Management Office at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center (GSFC). Each node is led by an expert in the subject discipline, supported by an advisory group of other practitioners of that discipline, and subject to selection and approval under a regular NASA Research Announcement.
Click here to return to the Photojournal Home Page Click here to view a list of Photojournal Image Galleries Photojournal_inner_header
Latest Images  |  Spacecraft & Technology  |  Animations  |  Space Images App  |  Feedback  |  Photojournal Search  

PIA15667: South Pole Vistas
 Target Name:  Vesta
 Is a satellite of:  Sol (our sun)
 Mission:  Dawn
 Spacecraft:  Dawn
 Instrument:  Framing Camera
 Product Size:  1540 x 1040 pixels (w x h)
 Produced By:  JPL
 Full-Res TIFF:  PIA15667.tif (4.813 MB)
 Full-Res JPEG:  PIA15667.jpg (136.1 kB)

Click on image above for all movie download options

Original Caption Released with Image:

Click here for movie for PIA15667
Click on the image for the video

Scientists with NASA's Dawn mission have created perspective views of the Rheasilvia impact basin on the giant asteroid Vesta. Rheasilvia is located in Vesta's southern hemisphere.

The movie shows 360-degree views from inside Rheasilvia. The black-and-white perspective view was made by laying a global image mosaic from Dawn's survey phase (1,700 miles or 2,750 kilometers in altitude) over a topographic shape model. The colorized view was made by laying a color-coded height map over the topography. Red indicates higher areas and blue indicates lower areas. The central mountain is approximately 110 miles (180 kilometers) wide and 12 to 15 miles (20 to 25 kilometers) tall. Cliffs 9 to 12 miles (15 to 20 kilometers) high are seen along parts of the edge of the basin.

A still image showing the black-and-white view from the Rheasilvia rim, with the corresponding colorized topography image, is also included here.

The images used to create these vistas were obtained by Dawn's framing camera from Aug. 11 to Nov. 2, 2011.

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. UCLA 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/JPL.

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

Image Credit:
NASA/JPL-Caltech/UCLA/MPS/DLR/IDA/PSI

Image Addition Date:
2012-05-10