News Release Archive:

News Release 11 of 167

October 8, 2010 02:20 PM (EDT)

News Release Number: STScI-2010-33

NASA Mission to Asteroid Gets Help from Hubble Space Telescope

Technical facts about this news release:

About the Object

Object Name:	Vesta, 4 Vesta
Object Description:	Asteroid
Distance:	The semi-major axis of Vesta's orbit about the Sun is 2.36 astronomical units (AU) or roughly 219 million miles (353 million kilometers).
Dimensions:	Vesta has a mean diameter of approximately 330 miles (530 kilometers). The object has a 354-mile (570-km) diameter at the equator and a slightly smaller diameter of 288-miles (464-km) pole-to-pole.

About the Data

Data Description:	This image was created from HST data from proposal 12050: J.-Y. Li (University of Maryland, College Park), L. McFadden (NASA/GSFC), P. Thomas (Cornell University), C. Russell (University of California, Los Angeles), M. Mutchler (STScI), and M. Rayman, C. Raymond, and S. Weinstein-Weiss (JPL/Caltech).
Instrument:	WFC3
Exposure Date(s):	February 25 and 28, 2010
Exposure Time:	20 minutes
Filters:	F373N (373 nm) and F469N (469 nm)

About the Image

Image Credit:

NASA, ESA, J.-Y. Li (University of Maryland, College Park), and L. McFadden (NASA/GSFC)

Release Date:

October 8, 2010

Color:

These images are composites of separate exposures made by the WFC3 instrument on the Hubble Space Telescope (HST). Each filter was used to sample a narrow wavelength range. The composite colors result from assigning different hues (colors) to each monochromatic (grayscale) image associated with an individual filter. In this case, the assigned colors are:

F469N (469 nm)	yellow/gold
F373N (373 nm)	cyan

Orientation: