Dawn Spacecraft And Asteroid Vesta

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NASA's Dawn spacecraft, which arrived in orbit around the asteroid Vesta last month, has officialy begun its yearlong mission to spy on the giant space rock.

The probe began studying Vesta from orbit on Aug. 11, beginning the first of four planned study phases to be conducted from different orbits around the space rock. The Dawn spacecraft is the first to visit an asteroid in the asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter, whichVesta and many other space rocks call home.

NASA launched the $466 million Dawn spacecraft in September 2007. It arrived at Vesta in July 2011 and will spend a year circling the asteroid before moving on to the even larger asteroid Ceres, where it will arrive in 2015. [Photos: Asteroid Vesta and NASA's Dawn Spacecraft]
http://www.space.com/11540-photos-aster ... -dawn.html