Vesta and Pluto's moons
Jul. 22nd, 2011 09:07 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
steorra posting in ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png){kind=small}
astronomyVesta
So, a few days ago, Dawn entered orbit around Vesta, and is now slowly spiralling in towards its intended science orbit. Already it has sent back some pictures that show interesting amounts of detail: this one from July 17 (press release for the image) and this one from July 18 (press release for the image).
Both pictures largely show the south polar terrain, where a large impact is believed to have taken quite a chunk off of Vesta; in the middle of the south polar terrain is a large peak.
What catches my attention is the texture of the south polar terrain. There are a lot of grooves and ridges that I suppose were probably formed in some way by the impact. There are craters on it, but it's not thoroughly cratered, which ought to indicate that it's not very very old. (It would be nice to see how cratered the rest of Vesta appears, for comparison, but the pictures we have so far don't show that very well; you can see a bit of the non-south-polar terrain in the July 17 picture.)
Pluto's moons
On Wednesday, the discovery of a fourth moon orbiting Pluto was announced! It was discovered with the Hubble Space Telescope.
So, a few days ago, Dawn entered orbit around Vesta, and is now slowly spiralling in towards its intended science orbit. Already it has sent back some pictures that show interesting amounts of detail: this one from July 17 (press release for the image) and this one from July 18 (press release for the image).
Both pictures largely show the south polar terrain, where a large impact is believed to have taken quite a chunk off of Vesta; in the middle of the south polar terrain is a large peak.
What catches my attention is the texture of the south polar terrain. There are a lot of grooves and ridges that I suppose were probably formed in some way by the impact. There are craters on it, but it's not thoroughly cratered, which ought to indicate that it's not very very old. (It would be nice to see how cratered the rest of Vesta appears, for comparison, but the pictures we have so far don't show that very well; you can see a bit of the non-south-polar terrain in the July 17 picture.)
Pluto's moons
On Wednesday, the discovery of a fourth moon orbiting Pluto was announced! It was discovered with the Hubble Space Telescope.
