Craters Within Thick Ejecta in the Rheasilvia Basin - Nasa Dawn Mission Image of the Day 17 Jan 2012

This Dawn Framing Camera (FC) image shows a large crater with several smaller craters at the edge on the giant asteroid Vesta. Rough texture in the crater wall at far right may be the underlying bedrock.

This image covers an area in the south polar region, centered around 58.3 south latitude and 283.7 degrees east longitude. NASA’s Dawn spacecraft obtained this image with its framing camera on Dec. 18, 2011. The distance to the surface of Vesta is 272 kilometers and the image has a resolution of about 25 meters per pixel. This image was acquired during the LAMO (Low Altitude Mapping Orbit) phase of the mission.

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