The spacecraft NASA asteroid approach video capture

 Scientists working with NASA's dawn spacecraft to create a new video shows giant asteroid Vesta as a spacecraft this world unexplored in the main asteroid belt.

Looping video 20 images found for purposes of navigation on June 1. Show photos dark feature near the Equator Vesta to move from left to right across the field of vision as Vesta rotating. Also, images appear jagged in Vesta, irregular shape, alluding to enormous crater known in Antarctica in Vesta.

Camera framing images obtained during the 30-minute show about 30 degrees rotation. And approaching the size of the pixels in the images resolution Hubble space images better than Vesta.

"Me," Yang Jianping, a participation of the University of Maryland, College Park "like strangers in a strange land, we look for familiar landmarks,". "One of those mysterious spot: to match feature, known as ' b ' feature, and it appears from images taken" Vesta Hubble space for NASA ".

By Vesta orbit on 16 July, dawn will slow down gently to about 75 mph (120 kph). NASA expects to release more photos on a weekly basis, with more frequent images available once the spacecraft collecting scientific in Vesta.

"Andreas nathois", a framework for the camera, his principal investigator at the Max Planck Institute for solar system research, Lindau, Germany katlinborg "coming Vesta to focus,". "Framing camera dawn works exactly as expected."

Mission dawn run "" Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California, NASA's Science Mission Directorate, "agency in Washington. Dawn project "discovery" of the Directorate, and managed by NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center in Los Angeles Huntsville responsible science mission this year. Orbital Sciences Corporation, Dulles, Virginia, designed and built the spacecraft dawn. Framing cameras were developed and built under the leadership of the Max Planck Institute "solar system research in katlinborg-Lindau Giuseppe. German (dlr) Institute of planetary research in Berlin made substantial contributions in coordination with the Institute of computer and network architecture "in Braunschweig. Camera framing funded project "Max Planck Society, aerospace and NASA. Jet Division of the California Institute of technology in Pasadena.

For more information on the dawn, visit: http://www.nasa.gov/dawn.

Source of the story:

The above story is reprinted  of materials provided from NASA Propulsion Laboratory/Jet.

View the original article here