LYCOS RETRIEVER 
4 Vesta
built 608 days ago
Asteroid 4 Vesta is one of the few asteroids that can be linked to particular meteorites. Vesta has reflectance spectra similar to the HEDs (howardites, eucrites, and diogenites) and is commonly thought to be the parent body of these meteorites. Vesta is ... the largest object in a family of asteroids and many asteroids in this family also have reflectance spectra similar to Vesta and the HEDs. These objects with HED-like spectra are commonly called Vestoids and have been found throughout the inner main belt and in the near-Earth asteroid population.
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Most planetary scientists believe that 4 Vesta is the source of howardite, eucrite, and diogenite meteorites (HED) found on Earth, but Kelley points out that it is not a direct process. "Vesta is located in a part of the main asteroid belt that makes it almost impossible for it to deliver meteorites directly to Earth. So there are probably intermediate asteroids, which were once part of Vesta, located in more favorable orbits that provide delivery."
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These are all thought to have originated from the crust of the asteroid 4 Vesta, their differences being due to different geologic histories of the parent rock. Their crystallization ages have been determined to be between 4.43 and 4.55 billion years from radioisotope ratios.
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Polarimeric observations of the asteroids 1 Ceres and 4 Vesta were carried out at the 70-cm telescope of Astronomical Observatory of Kharkiv National University from December 1998 to May 1999 and in September 2002. Polarimetric data were taken in VR standard spectral bands with a single-channel photometer-polarimeter, that worked on the modulation principle with a rapidly rotating polaroid. For the asteroid 4 Vesta observations were made in the range of phase angle from 2.5 to 25.3deg and was obtained phase dependence of the polarization that consists of negative and positive branches. The characteristics of the phase dependence Pmin=-0.67%, ALPHAmin=7.7deg, ALPHAinv=22.6deg and h=0.05 have been obtained. Geometric albedo of the asteroid has been calculated and equal to Pv(h)=0.35, Pv(Pmin)=0.2. For the asteroid 1 Ceres observations were made in the range of phase angle from 11.6 to 21.7deg.
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Figure 3: Vesta, after image processing using the star SAO 140614 as a point spread function. Dawn is at the facility for final processing and launch operations. Return each weekday for a new SPACE.com Image of the Day.
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At 4am in early March, Vesta is already about 30 degrees above the horizon (for mid-latitudes in the northern hemisphere) and just above Scorpius in the southeastern sky. Vesta is moving eastwards through the stars, slowing down near the end of the month. By the end of the month Vesta and Scorpius will be floating above the southern horizon at 4am.
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4 Vesta