Helena and Laelia craters - Nasa Dawn Mission Image of the Day 7 May 2012

Dawn Mission: News & Events > Helena and Laelia craters

This Dawn framing camera (FC) image of Vesta shows Helena crater, which is the crater that resembles the shape of a butterfly’s wings in the center of the image, and Laelia crater, which is the crater in the bottom right corner of the image. Helena is approximately 22 kilometers (14 miles) in diameter and Laelia is approximately 9 kilometers (6 miles) in diameter. There are many areas of dark material in and around Laelia crater. Some of this dark material crops out from the crater’s rim and slumps towards its center, while other patches of dark material, mostly associated with smaller craters, surround Laelia. There is another, similarly sized crater, which appears to be overlapped by Helena crater. Helena looks slightly fresher than this other crater so it is likely Helena that is the younger crater. 

This image is located in Vesta’s Sextilia quadrangle, in Vesta’s southern hemisphere. NASA’s Dawn spacecraft obtained this image with its framing camera on Oct. 13, 2011. This image was taken through the camera’s clear filter. The distance to the surface of Vesta is 700 kilometers (435 miles) and the image has a resolution of about 68 meters (223 feet) per pixel. This image was acquired during the HAMO (high-altitude mapping orbit) phase of the mission.

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