for my lack of activity lately, life seems to have go into an overload of work. I promise to be more regular once this is all sorted. I fully appreciate every single one of my followers, the ones that have recently discovered my blog, or have been with me from the beginning:) xxoo

nasasapod:

Virtual Flight Over Asteroid Vesta
Images Credit: NASA, JPL-Caltech, UCLA, MPS, DLR, IDA; Animation: German Aerospace Center(DRL)

Explanation: What would it be like to fly over the asteroid Vesta? Animators from the German Aerospace Center recently took actual images and height data from NASA’s Dawn mission currently visiting Vesta to generate such a virtual movie. The above video begins with a sequence above Divalia Fossa, an unusual pair of troughs running parallel over heavily cratered terrain. Next, the virtual spaceship explores Vesta’s 60-km Marcia Crater, showing numerous vivid details. Last, Dawn images were digitally recast with exaggerated height to better reveal Vesta’s 5-km high mountain Aricia Tholus. Currently, Dawn is rising away from Vesta after being close enough to obtain the most detailed surface images and gravity measurements of the Solar System’s second largest asteroid. In August, Dawn is scheduled to blast away from Vesta and head toward Ceres, the Solar System’s largest asteroid.