U.S. space agency NASA said the unmanned Dawn spacecraft was ready to go into orbit around the asteroid Vesta, 530 kilometers wide, the two largest drop objects in the asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter.
If everything goes as planned, Dawn began orbiting the huge stone was a Saturday morning, U.S. Eastern time, after traveling for four years. The robotic probe will orbit plane, the first spacecraft in the history of objects in the asteroid main road has become.
Engineers said Vesta and the Dawn mission will be separated by a distance of about 16 km thousand, if the space rock, berkawah capture the spacecraft in orbit. At that time, NASA says an asteroid and artificial satellites that will be about 188 million kilometers from Earth.
Dawn will remain in orbit around Vesta for a year, mapping the surface of the asteroid and make observations that help, according to NASA scientists understand the earliest history of the solar system, as is 4000000000 years old.
In July 2012, the Dawn spacecraft will leave Vesta orbit and wide to meet the second track, three years later, with the largest object in the path of asteroids, dwarf planets Cerre, almost 975 kilometers.
1 comments:
Hello! Zero, thank you again for visiting!
It's really interesting how the human conquest of space.
A hug!
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