Dawn has departed the giant asteroid Vesta
Over the past year, the spacecraft has comprehensively mapped this previously uncharted world, revealing an exotic and diverse planetary building block.
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NASA/JPL —
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September 7, 2012 This image is from the last sequence of images NASA's Dawn spacecraft obtained of the giant asteroid Vesta, looking down at Vesta's north pole as it was departing. When Dawn arrived in July 2011, Vesta's northern region was in darkness. After more than a year at Vesta, the sunlight has now made it to Vesta's north pole, which is in the middle of the image.
Photo by NASA/JPL-Caltech/UCLA/MPS/DLR/IDA
Dawn departed from Vesta at about 11:26 p.m. PDT September 4 (2:26 a.m. EDT September 5). Communications from the spacecraft via NASA's Deep Space Network confirmed the departure and that the spacecraft is now traveling toward Ceres.
"As we respectfully say goodbye to Vesta and reflect on the amazing discoveries over the past year, we eagerly look forward to the next phase of our adventure at Ceres, where even more exciting discoveries await," said Robert Mase, Dawn project manager, based at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, California.
LaunchedSeptember 27, 2007, Dawn slipped into orbit around Vesta on July 15, 2011 PDT (July 16 EDT). Over the past year, Dawn has comprehensively mapped this previously uncharted world, revealing an exotic and diverse planetary building block. The findings are helping scientists unlock some of the secrets of how the solar system, including Earth, formed.
Dawn spiraled away from Vesta as gently as it arrived. It is expected to pull into its next port of call, Ceres, in early 2015.
See Astronomy.com's complete coverage of Dawn at Vesta:
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