Topography of Vesta’s south polar region IV: Nasa Dawn Mission Image of the Day Gallery: 5 Nov 2011

PASADENA, Calif. -- These Dawn FC (framing camera) images show the central area of the south polar basin. They provide a view of the same region as yesterday’s Image of the Day but here the view is rotated by approximately 90°. These image show the mountain/ central complex as a roughly circular feature in the right of the image and there are grooves, scarps and hummocky (eg. wavy/ undulating) terrane around and on this feature. The left image is an albedo image, which is taken directly through the clear filter of the FC. Such an image shows the albedo (eg. brightness/ darkness) of the surface. The right image uses the same albedo image as its base but then a color-coded height representation of the topography is overlain onto it. The various colors correspond to the height of the area that they color. For example, red in the left and top of the right image is the highest area and the blue areas in the center of the image are the lowest. This color-coding greatly enhances the topography contrast between the mountain/ central complex (colored yellow and green) and the depression surrounding it (colored blue). The topography is calculated from a set of images that were observed from different viewing directions, these are called stereo images.

NASA’s Dawn spacecraft obtained the albedo image with its framing camera on August 11, 2011. This image was taken through the camera’s clear filter. The distance to the surface of Vesta is 2740 km the image has a resolution of about 250 meters per pixel. The images are projected using a lambert-azimuthal map projection.

Image Credit: NASA /JPL-Caltech/ UCLA/ MPS/ DLR/ IDA