asteroids have long been considered objects of fascination when it comes to space exploration
cirrus and vesta are two of the earliest and most massive asteroids ever discovered in our solar
system so much so that they were once counted among the planets even before pluto had been
discovered nasa launched dawn its spacecraft which successfully completed its mission to
explore vesta and ceres and uncover the secrets of these fascinating objects welcome to fact
nominal and in today's video we will be taking a look at some of the most surprising discoveries
and stunning images from series investor captured by nasa's dawn mission probe
ever wondered what those rocky objects circling the sun that are too small to be considered
planets are well that's an asteroid for you some would even call them planetoids or minor planets
space is full of these objects ranging from all different shapes and sizes
they can be found all throughout the solar system but one of the main regions you would find them
is the region between mars and jupiter a debris strewn main asteroid belt in 1801 while making
a star map giuseppe piazzi stumbled upon a small object about 1 000 kilometers in diameter between
the orbit of mars and jupiter the first ever asteroid to be discovered ceres from then on
more and more asteroids seemed to be popping up on astronomers radar so to speak but asteroids are
by no means innocent little space rocks they can actually be quite dangerous they've been known to
zoom straight into planets and cause major damage on the surface like causing massive craters for
example because of this scientists have recognized the need to study these asteroids and find out all
they could about them all eyes were turned towards these newly discovered space rocks and the main
asteroid belt specifically ceres and its neighbor vesta the second most massive body discovered
in the asteroid belt for many years after their discovery both were considered to be asteroids but
ceres for example being so much bigger than its other rocky neighbors was given an upgrade in 2006
after much debate over its classification they decided that it was simply too big in comparison
to the other rocky material floating around in the main asteroid belt to be simply called an asteroid
and they decided that ceres was now a dwarf planet vesta on the other hand wasn't quite large
enough to be deemed a dwarf planet but scientists prefer to think of it as a protoplanet because of
its dense layered body that seemingly orbits the sun in a manner similar to mars venus and earth
there are so many questions that have had scientists and astronomers scratching their heads
about the formation of our solar system and the early days in a quest to find answers it
is important to take a trip back in time to truly understand how everything came to be
as a part of nasa's discovery program dawn a mission was launched to address the role
size and water in determining the evolution of the planets and as you have it ceres and vesta
were just the right bodies to address these questions being minor planets whose growth
was interrupted by the formation of jupiter dawn was nasa's first truly interplanetary spaceship
that took a journey through space and time almost like going back and opening up a space-time
capsule the spacecraft was boosted by an innovative ion propulsion system and took nearly 4
days to accelerate from 0 to 60 miles per hour at maximum throttle the orbiter was launched at
the cape canaveral air force station in florida with its target set for the two massive bodies
after traveling a whopping 1.7 billion miles the dawn spacecraft made its arrival at the
proto-planet vesta on july 16 2011 where it spent a little over a year in orbit around the second
largest object in the asteroid belt dawn made some fascinating discoveries on vesta while in orbit
first it found two colossal impact basins in the vesta's southern hemisphere
the ria sylvia basin is 310 miles wide and the much older 250 mile wide venenaia crater
data from dawn showed that the reyes silvia's peak rises 12 to 16 miles
and is more than 100 miles wide putting it in direct competition with olympus mons on mars
as the largest mountain in the solar system the spacecraft was also able to map out
vesta's geology composition cratering record and more images from the mission show its heavily
cratered surface with a rough topography the pitted terrains and gullies found in several
young craters were taken as evidence of transient water flow a key finding was
that dawn confirmed that vesta is the parent of the head power diets eucrates and diogenetics
meteorites found on earth and mars which is connected to vesta's large south polar basin the
proto-planet is small enough to have been deeply scarred by the ray of silvia impact and launched
all the heads but also large enough to have differentiated into an iron core igneous crust and
silicate mantle hydrated and carbon-rich material was also found on vesta's surface the research
from dawn also suggests that it could be hiding ice beneath its surface it would explain much of
why the surface of esta is the way it is and ice could have played a dominant role in shaping vesta
named after the roman goddess of corn and harvests ceres was a big target for dawn with a radius of
296 miles or 476 kilometers it only amounts to 1 13th the radius of the earth to put that
into perspective if earth were the size of a nickel then ceres would be a mere poppy seed
on september 5th 2012 after leaving vesta don began its track towards the dwarf planet series
another 3.1 billion miles away while vesta is more of a rocky world ceres is surprisingly icy
it was here that dawn discovered that the inner solar system's only dwarf planet
was actually an ocean world where water and ammonia reacted with silicate rocks
it appears to have been formed farther from the sun and migrated into the inner solar system
after measuring series surface composition don found ammonia which requires colder temperatures
like that of the outer solar system to condense finding that ceres is also an ocean world is
probably one of the biggest findings from the dawn mission water is essential to sustain life and any
ocean worlds that have been discovered immediately becomes the main focus for further exploration
because they could support conditions that are suitable for life like titan and enceladus for
example this is important because studying an evolved dwarf planet like ceres could teach
us a lot about the environmental conditions at other ocean worlds additionally an abundance of
organic molecules which are the building blocks of life were found in the emittet crater region
though scientists still aren't exactly sure of the origins of series organic molecules they
can be associated with life and non-biological processes as well series features an array of
bright spots called faculae that shine on top of the otherwise dark landscape of the dwarf planet
in fact the brightest area in the aquitar crater on ceres is the largest deposit of carbonate
materials ever seen beyond earth these minerals are associated with oceanic and lake environments
making ceres an even more exciting ocean world to explore it also has volcanic activity the dwarf
planet is home to an enormous volcano ahunamans which stands three miles or five kilometers
high on its steepest side which the dawn team believes was initially formed as a cryovolcano
while most of ceres is seemingly smooth and rather bland this
just goes to show it is geologically active or at least was some time ago
after more than 11 years of exploration in october 2018 it was time to conclude dawn's mission
despite significant challenges dawn explored about 45 of the entire mass contained in the
main asteroid belt most notable of course was the 3.7 years it spent in orbit around ceres and 1.1
years around vesta giving us insight into these space wonders no other spacecraft has been able to
explore these two massive objects in the main belt area and provide a rich harvest of scientific data
along with some breathtaking images though dom answered many questions and filled in several
knowledge gaps about series investa it has given us more reason to further explore the
two minor planets the lessons we learned from dawn will no doubt help with future missions
although the mission was cut short in 2018 by the lack of fuel nasa announced that it will
continue to orbit series for another 50 years the spacecraft is a true testament to human creativity
and shall serve as a lasting reminder that passion for bold adventure and the hunger
to know more about what lies in the cosmos can take us way beyond what we could ever imagine
that's all for today folks what are your thoughts on series investor
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