Dawn's first view of Vesta (processed)

Filed under asteroid 4 Vesta, pretty pictures, asteroids, Dawn

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Dawn was about 1.2 million miles away from Vesta when it took this photo on May 3, 2011. In this version the area around Vesta has had its brightness reduced so you can see the actual size of the asteroid, and the rest of the image has had the brightness massively increased to reveal more background stars. In the upper right corner is an enlarged view of the few pixels that span the asteroid.

NASA / JPL-Caltech / UCLA / MPS / DLR / IDA

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported License.
Contact us to request publication permission from the copyright holder. Original image data dated on or about May 3, 2011