Vesta closer up

[mmcirvin]

http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/news.cfm?release=2011-213

This is the inside of the big south-polar crater. Now I can't tell whether the grooves that seemed to be visible in lower-resolution photos were just a trick of the light.

Comments

[mmcirvin.livejournal.com]

...Phil Plait points out that they look more like scarps now.

[acw.livejournal.com]

I'm not sure I can see what you call "the big south-polar crater". There are a lot of craters in the image, but the big feature in the middle on the terminator is an outie rather than an innie.

[mmcirvin.livejournal.com]

The whole image is covered by the crater.

[mmcirvin.livejournal.com]

...To give a better idea, here's an elevation map from the Hubble telescope:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Vesta-Elevation.jpg

The recent closeup pictures are looking right at the lump in the middle of that crater covering the whole southern hemisphere. Since it's a crater on a convex object, it doesn't actually look all that concave.