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A R C H I V E S

This Dawn Framing Camera (FC) image of the Giant Asteroid 4-Vesta shows an Escarpment located near its South Pole. An Escarpment, in other words, is just a Cliff (or a very Steep Slope); the Feature that we see here runs diagonally from the top to the bottom of the frame and it is so very well visible (and easy to identify) also because of the dark shadow that it casts. Roughly 25 Km (approx. 16 miles) of the Escarpment are visible in this image, but its total length is more than that. Furthermore, in order to find an accurate height of the Escarpment itself, it will be necessary to use the Shape Model of 4-Vesta. The formation mechanism of Escarpments on 4-Vesta is currently being investigated, but no satisfying theories have been proposed so far.

If you look at the Feature carefully, you will be able to see that there are many smaller Grooves that are also running diagonally all across the image, on either side of the Escarpment. This image shows part of a Region that is located in 4-Vesta's "Rhea Silvia Quadrangle!, near, as we said before, the South Pole of the Asteroid. The NASA - Dawn Spacecraft obtained this image with its Framing Camera on April, 8, 2012. This image was taken through the FC Camera's Clear Filter. The distance between the Spacecraft and the Surface of 4-Vesta, at the time that the picture was taken, wss approx. 241 Km (roughly 150 miles) and the image has a resolution of about 24 meters (79 feet) per pixel. The picture was acquired during the LAMO (Low-Altitude Mapping Orbit) Phase of the Mission.

The frame has been colorized in Absolute Natural Colors (such as the colors that a normal - meaning "in average" - human eye would actually perceive if someone were onboard the NASA - Dawn Spacecraft and then looked down, towards the Surface of the Giant Asteroid 4-Vesta), by using an original technique created - and, in time, dramatically improved - by the Lunar Explorer Italia Team.