This
colorful composite image from NASA's Dawn mission shows the flow of material
inside and outside a crater called Aelia on the giant asteroid Vesta. The area
is around 14 degrees south latitude. The images that went into this composite
were obtained by Dawn's framing camera from September to October 2011.
To
the naked eye, these structures would not be seen. But here, they stand out in
blue and red.
The
crater has a diameter of 2.7 miles (4.3 kilometers). The exact origin of the
flow structures is unknown. A possible explanation is that the impact that
produced the crater could have created liquid material with different minerals
than the surroundings.
The
composite image was created by assigning ratios of color information collected
from several color filters in visible light and near-infrared light to maximize
subtle differences in lithology (the physical characteristics of rock units,
such as color, texture and composition). The color scheme pays special attention
to the iron-rich mineral pyroxene.
The
Dawn mission to Vesta and Ceres is managed by NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory,
a division of the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena, for NASA's
Science Mission Directorate, Washington. The University of California, Los
Angeles, is responsible for overall Dawn mission science. The Dawn framing
cameras were developed and built under the leadership of the Max Planck
Institute for Solar System Research, Katlenburg-Lindau, Germany, with
significant contributions by DLR German Aerospace Center, Institute of
Planetary Research, Berlin, and in coordination with the Institute of Computer
and Communication Network Engineering, Braunschweig. The framing camera project
is funded by the Max Planck Society, DLR and NASA.
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