NASA's Dawn Uncovers New Secrets About Vesta

NASA’s Dawn spacecraft has confirmed that one of the largest objects in the Main Asteroid Belt is actually a tiny planet-like body that formed around a molten interior like the Earth, Mars, Venus and Mercury. Launched in 2007, Dawn has been orbiting Vesta since last July. From its vantage point over the object — believed to be one of the oldest in the Solar System — the Orbital Sciences Corp. spacecraft has returned a batch of data that reveal Vesta as perhaps the sole survivor of the period when everything solid in the proto-Solar System was crashing together as it swirled around the young Sun ...