Asteroids & comets · Protoplanet in the asteroid belt

Vesta

Asteroid belt · Light crosses it in 0.0018 seconds

Across

525 km

Vs Earth

4.12% of Earth

Mass

2.6 × 10²⁰ kg

Open Vesta in Cosmic Scale

About

Vesta is the second-largest body in the asteroid belt and the brightest asteroid in our sky. It is a surviving protoplanet: it melted and separated into a metal core and rocky crust, like a small planet that never finished growing.

The brightest asteroid; sometimes visible to the naked eye.

At a glance

Size	About 525 km
Orbit	3.6 years
Visited	Dawn, 2011–2012
Big crater	Rheasilvia, 500 km wide

Did you know

1. The central peak of Rheasilvia is about 22 km high, one of the tallest mountains in the Solar System.
2. About 1 in 20 meteorites that fall on Earth came from Vesta.
3. It is the only asteroid sometimes bright enough to see with the naked eye.

Real photo

• Vesta in full, from the Dawn spacecraft in orbit — NASA/JPL-Caltech/UCLA/MPS/DLR/IDA · source