Dawn Gets Away from Vesta to Begin Journey to Dwarf Planet Ceres

NASA's Dawn spacecraft that had initiated its 3 billion mile odyssey to explore massive objects in the main asteroid belt in 2007 is on track to become the first probe to orbit and study distant destinations.

The intricate details garnered by Dawn will help the scientist to learn about the formation of the solar system. Slated to leave the asteroid Vesta on September 4 the spacecraft will start its two half year journey to the dwarf planet Ceres. It was in July 2011 that Dawn arrived on Vesta.

With the aid of special hyper efficient system 'ion propulsion', Dawn will make its escape from Vesta. Dawn's ion propulsion system uses electricity to ionize xenon to generate thrust.

"Thrust is engaged, and we are now climbing away from Vesta atop a blue-green pillar of xenon ions," said Marc Rayman, Dawn's chief engineer and mission director, at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif. "We are feeling somewhat wistful about concluding a fantastically productive and exciting exploration of Vesta, but now have our sights set on dwarf planet Ceres.

During its mission Dawn sent close images of Vesta providing details about the huge asteroid. Based on the images and details the scientists claim that Vesta completely melted in the past, forming a layered body with an iron core. The spacecraft also revealed the scarring from titanic collisions Vesta suffered in its southern hemisphere, surviving not one but two colossal impacts in the last two billion years.

"We went to Vesta to fill in the blanks of our knowledge about the early history of our solar system," said Christopher Russell, Dawn's principal investigator, based at the University of California Los Angeles (UCLA). "Dawn has filled in those pages, and more, revealing to us how special Vesta is as a survivor from the earliest days of the solar system. We can now say with certainty that Vesta resembles a small planet more closely than a typical asteroid."