Vesta

Also known as (4) Vesta, asteroid Vesta

second largest asteroid of the main asteroid belt

AI overview

Vesta is the second largest asteroid in the main asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter. It matters because studying it helps scientists understand the early formation of our solar system and the composition of rocky bodies in space.

AI-generated from the Wikipedia summary — may contain errors.

Picture of the Day · NASA

Pathfinder on Mars

2026-07-04

On July 4th, 1997, using its own array of fireworks, a parachute, and a cocoon of airbags, the Mars Pathfinder spacecraft bounced like a giant beach ball at least 15 times before it came to rest on the surface of Mars at 10:07 AM Pacific Daylight Time. After its then novel airbag-assisted landing sequence was completed, Pathfinder transmitted this color mosaic to mission operators on Earth. In the scene from another world, the Mars Sojourner robot rover is visible in the foreground, crouched on top of the unfolded Pathfinder. About the size of a large house cat, the six-wheeled, solar-powered Sojourner became the first successful Martian rover. Surrounding Pathfinder are deflated airbags and the rock-strewn terrain of the Ares Vallis floodplain. In the distance Martian hills appear against a dusty brownish sky. The Pathfinder lander was subsequently renamed the Carl Sagan Memorial Station.

via NASA APOD

Wikidata facts

Area: 866000
Diameter: 522.77
Radius: 262.7
Mass: 2590.76
Orbital period: 1325.536646992478
Image: Dawn-image-070911.jpg
Height: 446.4
Width: 557.2
Length: 572.6

Show 22 more facts

Commons category: Vesta (asteroid)
time of discovery or invention: 1807-03-29
Unicode character: ⚶
orbital inclination: 7.144060599543863
volume as quantity: 74600000
apparent magnitude: 5.1
temperature: 270
Commons gallery: (4) Vesta
density: 3.46
albedo: 0.4228
surface gravity: 0.22
provisional designation: A807 FA
absolute magnitude: 3.25
rotation period: 5.3421276322
orbital eccentricity: 0.09016764504738634
semi-major axis of an orbit: 2.361541280084789
periapsis: 2.148606664177354
apoapsis: 2.574475895992224
longitude of ascending node: 103.7022980342142
argument of periapsis: 151.5371488873794
mean anomaly: 26.80967220901607
time of periapsis: 2460901.785547203

Sources (9)

via Wikidata · CC0

~35 min read

Article

Vesta (minor-planet designation: 4 Vesta) is one of the largest objects in the asteroid belt, with a mean diameter of 525 kilometres (326 mi). It was discovered by the German astronomer Heinrich Wilhelm Matthias Olbers on 29 March 1807 and is named after Vesta, the virgin goddess of home and hearth from Roman mythology.

Vesta is thought to be the second-largest asteroid, both by mass and by volume, after the dwarf planet Ceres. Measurements give it a nominal volume only slightly larger than that of Pallas (about 5% greater), but it is 25% to 30% more massive. It constitutes an estimated 9% of the mass of the asteroid belt. Vesta is the only known remaining rocky protoplanet of the kind that formed the terrestrial planets. Numerous fragments of Vesta were ejected by collisions one and two billion years ago that left two enormous craters occupying much of Vesta's southern hemisphere. Debris from these events has fallen to Earth as howardite–eucrite–diogenite (HED) meteorites, which have been a rich source of information about Vesta.