These two images compare topographic maps of the giant asteroid Vesta as discerned by NASA's Hubble Space Telescope (top) and as seen by NASA's Dawn spacecraft (bottom). Hubble has been in an orbit around Earth, while Dawn orbited Vesta from 2011 to 2012. Although the absolute scale ranges are slightly different in Dawn data, Vesta's relative topography is remarkably consistent between the two data sets. The relative topography in Hubble data varies from 7.5 miles (12 kilometers) below to 7.5 miles (12 kilometers) above a reference ellipsoid shape of 180 by 174 by 142 miles (289 by 280 by 229 kilometers). The relative topography in Dawn data varies from 14 miles (22 kilometers) below to 12 miles (19 kilometers) above a reference ellipsoid shape of 177 by 177 by 142 miles (285 by 285 by 229 kilometers).
These two maps of the giant asteroid Vesta show patterns of brightness from NASA's Hubble Space Telescope (top) and NASA's Dawn spacecraft (bottom). Hubble's view is from an orbit around Earth. Dawn went into orbit around Vesta from 2011 to 2012. Scientists have been able to correlate several bright and dark features originally identified in Hubble images with features imaged at high resolution by the Dawn spacecraft's framing camera.
Image credits: (top) NASA/ESA/Cornell and NASA/JPL-Caltech/UCLA/MPS/DLR/IDA; (bottom) NASA/ESA/PSI/MIT and NASA/JPL-Caltech/UCLA/MPS/DLR/IDA
Note: For more information, see PIA17467: Asteroid or Mini-Planet? Hubble Maps the Ancient Surface of Vesta, Take a Virtual Tour of Vesta With New High-Resolution Images and Dawn Reality-Checks Telescope Studies of Asteroids.
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