![]() The images, which were acquired during Dawn's observation orbit, have a resolution of about 250 metres per pixel. This diagonal view was derived from a global digital elevation model of the asteroid created from stereo image data obtained with the German Framing Camera on board NASA's Dawn space probe at an altitude of 2420 kilometres above Vesta's surface. For the scientists working on the Dawn mission, it is not yet clear how this wild landscape was formed – collisions with other asteroids contributed, but also the internal processes that played a role during the asteroid’s early formation phases. Perspective view of a part of the edge of the south pole basin on VestaĪ visitor from Earth would encounter a dramatic landscape at Vesta's south pole: cliffs several kilometres high, deep trenches and craters which have formed the southern tip of this fascinating protoplanet in the asteroid belt, and a mountain massif up to 15 kilometres high. Dawn scientists are investigating the processes that formed this structure. From low-resolution images of the Hubble Space Telescope it was known that a big depression existed at Vesta’s south pole, and was suspected to be a big impact basin. The terrain model of Vesta’s southern hemisphere shows a remarkable circular structure with a diameter of about 500 kilometres, its rim rising above the interior of the structure for more than 15 kilometres. The image shows the elevation of surface structures above or below this ellipsoidal body with a horizontal resolution of about 750 metres per pixel. ![]() On Earth, we reference all topography to the spherical ‘surface’ of our global ocean level. ![]() With diameters between 458 and 578 kilometres, Vesta is not a spherical body, so its surface topography is referenced to the theoretical surface of a three-axial ellipsoidal body with semi-major axes of 289 kilometres, 280 kilometres, and 229 kilometres, respectively. From stereo images obtained with Dawn’s framing camera, scientists were able to produce a global shape model of asteroid Vesta.
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