Skip Navigation

Resources

Ray Craters in Vesta's South Polar Region

Ray Craters in Vesta's South Polar Region
Photojournal: PIA14828
Source: NASA/JPL-Caltech/UCLA/MPS/DLR/IDA
Published: October 8, 2011

This image from NASA's Dawn spacecraft shows many fresh craters, several with bright ejecta rays, which were formed by impacts into the floor of asteroid Vesta's south polar basin.

Related

This image from NASA's Dawn spacecraft, taken June 7, 2016, shows part of Lono Crater (at bottom) within the giant Yalode impact basin on Ceres.
More
Dawn LAMO Image 195
Dawn LAMO Image 195
NASA's Cassini spacecraft has recently resumed the kind of orbits that allow for spectacular views of Saturn's rings. This view, from Cassini's imaging camera, shows the outer A ring and the F ring...
More
This view, from Cassini's imaging camera, shows the outer A ring and the F ring.
Return to the Rings
The F ring shows off a rich variety of phenomena in this image from the Cassini spacecraft. Near the lower-right of the F ring are two ''fans'' of material radiating out of the main strand (or ''co...
More
Saturn's F ring
F Ring Zoo
Scientists collect a meteorite in Antarctica.
More
Two scientists examining a meteorite on snow-covered ground.
Antarctic Meteorite
This image of Ceres is part of a sequence taken by NASA's Dawn spacecraft April 24 to 26, 2015, from a distance of 8,500 miles (13,500 kilometers).
More
Dawn RC3 Image 6
Dawn RC3 Image 6
This image from NASA's Dawn spacecraft shows impact ejecta deposits dominating asteroid Vesta's landscape. This impact ejecta material was ejected from an impact crater located outside the imaged a...
More
Impact Ejecta Deposits Covering Underlying Topography
Impact Ejecta Deposits Covering Underlying Topography
This is one of the first raw images returned by the European Space Agency's Huygens probe during its successful descent to Titan. It was taken at an altitude of 8 kilometers with a resolution of 20...
More
black and white image of titan's surface
Huygens at Titan 3
Prometheus pulls material from the tortured F ring in this highly detailed view. The aftereffects of the moon's other recent encounters with the ring are visible above as dark channels in the inner...
More
Prometheus and Saturn's rings
Ring Herding
The Cassini spacecraft looks through Titan's thick atmosphere to reveal bright and dark terrains on the Saturn-facing side of the planet's largest moon. North is up. The image was taken with the ...
More
Titan
Saturn's View of Titan
This view of Saturn's moon Rhea includes two large and ancient impact basins and a more recent, bright ray crater. The large basin above center is named Tirawa. This feature (and the similar-size...
More
Saturn's moon Rhea
Crater Comparison
The Cassini spacecraft simultaneously peers through the haze in Titan's equatorial region down to its surface and captures the vortex of clouds hovering over its south pole just to the right of th...
More
Titan
Senkyo and Vortex
This Cassini spacecraft image provides a view of the southern portion of Tethys' trailing hemisphere. Prominent features include the huge canyon, Ithaca Chasma, approximately centered in this view...
More
Tethys
Icy Old Moon
These two pictures of Uranus were compiled from images recorded by Voyager 2 on Jan. 10, 1986, when the NASA spacecraft was 18 million kilometers (11 million miles) from the planet. 
More
These two pictures of Uranus were compiled from images recorded by Voyager 2 on Jan. 10, 1986, when the NASA spacecraft was 18 million kilometers (11 million miles) from the planet.
Uranus, Toward the Planet's Pole of Rotation
These images from NASA's Dawn spacecraft are located in asteroid Vesta's Bellicia quadrangle, in Vesta's northern hemisphere.
More
HAMO and LAMO Images of Arruntia Crater
HAMO and LAMO Images of Arruntia Crater
+ View Full Res This raw, unprocessed image was taken by NASA's Cassini spacecraft on May 2, 2012. The camera was pointing toward Enceladus at approximately 239,799 miles (385,919 kilometers) away...
More
Enceladus
Enceladus Spray (Raw Image)
These composite images from NASA's Dawn spacecraft images show the spectacular spectral diversity of asteroid Vesta's surface.
More
Color Composite Images of Vesta
Color Composite Images of Vesta
This infrared view of Saturn's southern hemisphere shows the bright, high altitude equatorial band at the top, and the now familiar dark bull's-eye that marks the planet's south pole. At the mid-la...
More
This image shows an infrared view of Saturn's southern hemisphere
Image Compression
These images are of HED (howardite, eucrite and diogenite) meteorites, a large group of meteorites believed to originate from asteroid Vesta, a hypothesis that is consistent with current Dawn obser...
More
Rocks from Vesta -- Part 1: Eucrites
Rocks from Vesta -- Part 1: Eucrites
During its closest flyby of Saturn's wrinkled, icy moon Enceladus, Cassini obtained multi-spectral images of its cratered terrain that have been put together to create this false-color view. To hu...
More
Wrinkled, icy moon Enceladus
Painting on the Walls
Four of Saturn's moons join the planet for a well balanced portrait. Saturn's largest moon, Titan (5,150 kilometers, or 3,200 miles across), is in the lower left. Tethys (1,062 kilometers, or 660 ...
More
Saturn, Titan, Tethys, Pandora and Epimetheus
Quartet and Crescent
The Cassini spacecraft is closing in fast on its first target of observation in the Saturn system: the small, mysterious moon Phoebe, only 220 kilometers (137 miles) across. The three images ...
More
Closing in on Phoebe
Closing in on Phoebe
This image from NASA's Dawn spacecraft shows some of the undulating terrain in asteroid Vesta's southern hemisphere.
More
Undulating Terrain in Vesta's Southern Hemisphere
Undulating Terrain in Vesta's Southern Hemisphere
These images from NASA's Dawn spacecraft are dominated by the 35km diameter Bellicia crater on asteroid Vesta, after which Bellicia quadrangle is named.
More
Topography and Albedo Image of Bellicia Crater
Topography and Albedo Image of Bellicia Crater
A propeller-shaped structure, created by an unseen moon, can be seen in Saturn's A ring. The propeller, which looks like a small, dark line interrupting the bright surrounding ring material, is in...
More
A propeller-shaped structure in Saturn's A ring.
A-ring Propeller
This is a frame from an animation showcasing a series of images NASA's Dawn spacecraft took on approach to Ceres on Feb. 4, 2015 at a distance of about 90,000 miles (145,000 kilometers) from the dw...
More
Animation of Ceres on Approach
Animation of Ceres on Approach

You Might Also Like