Asteroid Vesta could be a fragment of a solar system planet, but which one?

Asteroid Vesta could be a fragment of a solar system planet, but which one?

The interior of asteroid Vesta has been shown not to be a protoplanet after all, meaning that new explanations for its origin are needed.

Vesta's missing core shatters long-held beliefs about the asteroid

For decades, scientists believed Vesta, one of the largest objects in our solar system's asteroid belt, wasn't just an asteroid and eventually concluded it was more like a planet with a crust, mantle and core. Now, Michigan State University has contributed to research that flips this notion on its head.A team led by the NASA Jet Propulsion Lab, or JPL, authored a paper published in Nature Astronomy, that reveals Vesta doesn't have a core. These …

What is Vesta? Neither an asteroid nor a planet, says study

What is Vesta? It’s not an asteroid nor a planet. And a new study says it doesn’t have a core, either. This view of Vesta is from the Dawn mission. Image via NASA/ JPL/ MPS/ DLR/ IDA/ Björn Jónsson/ Wikimedia. Your support = more science, more stars, more wonder. Donate to EarthSky and be part of something bigger. What is Vesta? Vesta is a rocky world orbiting the sun in the asteroid belt. In fact, it contains about 9% of the mass of the entire …

(4) Vesta, the brightest asteroid at opposition: an image - 2 May 2025. - The Virtual Telescope Project 2.0

Asteroid (4) Vesta imaged on 2 May 2025, the day of its opposition. Gianluca Masi, Virtual Telescope Project, Italy.