US EditionNew research shatters long-held beliefs about asteroid Vesta
- NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory led a new study published April 23, 2025, that reinterprets asteroid Vesta's internal structure using Dawn mission data.
- Conflicting gravity data and imaging from Dawn, refined over a decade, motivated reevaluation of Vesta's composition and differentiation state.
- The research shows Vesta's interior is more uniform and lacks a well-defined iron core, challenging its classification as a protoplanet with a crust, mantle, and core.
- Lead author Ryan Park expressed excitement over validating the robustness of the data in uncovering details about Vesta's interior, while co-author Seth Jacobson described the findings as offering a fundamentally new perspective on the asteroid.
- These findings imply Vesta is either an incomplete embryonic planet or a fragment from a larger body shattered during early solar system collisions, altering its scientific significance.
17 Articles
17 Articles
A small core in Vesta inferred from Dawn’s observations
Vesta’s large-scale interior structure had previously been constrained primarily using the gravity and shape data from the Dawn mission. However, these data alone still allow a wide range of possibilities for the differentiation state of the body. The moment of inertia is arguably the most diagnostic parameter related to the radial density distribution of a planetary body, making it crucial for assessing the body’s state of internal differentiat…
Vesta Isn’t What We Thought – Could It Be a Chunk of a Lost Planet?
Surprising new research reveals Vesta lacks a core, suggesting it may be planetary debris rather than a proto-planet, rewriting its origin story. New research reveals that Vesta doesn’t fully qualify as either an asteroid or a planet. These findings challenge long-standing ideas about how planets and asteroids form in the early solar system. Understanding Vesta’s [...]
Dawn's Second Look Reveals Vesta Could Be Part of a Lost World
As the second-largest object in the main asteroid belt, Vesta attracts a healthy amount of scientific interest.While smaller asteroids in the belt are considered fragments of collisions, scientists think Vesta and the other three large objects in the belt are likely primordial and have survived for billions of years. They believe that Vesta was on its way to becoming a planet and that the Solar System's rocky planets likely began as protopla…
Astronomers Learn Something "Very Surprising" While Studying the Mysterious Asteroid Vesta
Vesta, a strange object in our solar system long believed to straddle the line between a planet and an asteroid, has revealed new clues that challenge past assumptions about its mysterious nature. Among the largest objects in our solar system‘s asteroid belt, astronomers long viewed Vesta as likely similar to the very early Earth, containing a core, mantle, and crust, as a sort of photo-planet stuck in arrested development. Yet discoveries from …
New research shatters long-held beliefs about asteroid Vesta
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, new research flips this notion on its head. Astronomers reveals Vesta doesn't have a core. These findings startled researchers who, until that point, assumed Vesta was a protoplanet that never grew to a full planet.
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