On 15th July, NASA’s ion-propelled Dawn probe will become the first spacecraft to enter orbit around a main-belt asteroid.
Dawn will orbit Vesta for one Earth-year, studying the giant space rock at close range to help scientists understand the earliest chapter of our solar system’s history.:
NASA’s Dawn spacecraft obtained this image of the giant asteroid Vesta with its framing camera on 9th July 2011. It was taken from a distance of about 26,000 miles (41,000 kilometers) away from Vesta, which is also considered a protoplanet because it is a large body that almost became a planet. Each pixel in the image corresponds to roughly 2.4 miles (3.8 kilometers)
