For Immediate Release September 20, 2012 Michael Buckley, Johns
Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory Dwayne Brown, NASA
Headquarters Jia-Rui Cook, NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory Dawn
Spacecraft Sees Hydrated Minerals on Giant Asteroid Johns
Hopkins APL researchers contribute to findings published in
Science NASA's Dawn spacecraft has revealed that the giant
asteroid Vesta has its own version of ring around the collar.
Scientists from The Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics
Laboratory (APL) contribute to two new papers describing how
volatile, or easily evaporated materials, have colored Vesta's
surface in a broad swath around its equator. Pothole-like
features mark some of the asteroid's surface where the
volatiles, likely water, released from hydrated minerals boiled
off. While Dawn did not find actual water ice at Vesta, there
are signs of hydrated minerals delivered by meteorites and dust
evident in the giant asteroid's chemistry and geology. The
findings appear this week in the journal Science. One pap