Orange patches on Ceres

October 15, 2021

Dawn Framing Cameras observations of surface structures on Vesta

Project description

Vesta’s rocky history

The dark material found on the protoplanet Vesta contains the mineral serpentine - and must therefore be of exogenic origin.

The Numisia crater just south of Vesta’s equator has a diameter of 30 kilometers. Images obtained by the camera system on board NASA’s spacecraft Dawn with the clear filter (left) show dark material in the crater walls and in the material ejected during impact. The camera system’s color filters can filter individual wavelengths from the reflected light and thus make further variations in the surface composition visible (right). In data like this the researchers found the characteristic fingerprints of the mineral serpentine.

© NASA/JPL-Caltech/UCLA/MPS/DLR/IDA

The Numisia crater just south of Vesta’s equator has a diameter of 30 kilometers. Images obtained by the camera system on board NASA’s spacecraft Dawn with the clear filter (left) show dark material in the crater walls and in the material ejected during impact. The camera system’s color filters can filter individual wavelengths from the reflected light and thus make further variations in the surface composition visible (right). In data like this the researchers found the characteristic fingerprints of the mineral serpentine.

© NASA/JPL-Caltech/UCLA/MPS/DLR/IDA

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Orange patches on Ceres

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