NASA's flyover of giant asteroid Vesta in 720-HD

[pokerfan]

A new video from NASA's Dawn spacecraft takes us on a flyover journey above the surface of the giant asteroid Vesta. The data obtained by Dawn's framing camera, used to produce the visualizations, will help scientists determine the processes that formed Vesta's striking features. It will also help Dawn mission fans all over the world visualize this mysterious world, which is the second most massive object in the main asteroid belt.

credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/UCLA/MPS/DLR/IDA (imagery); DLR (animation)

http://youtu.be/LhIBISTXLm8

:bounce:

[HysteryDiagnosis]

1. They are gonna figure out how those striking features were created..... uhuh.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=439x1949497

[pokerfan]

3. works for me

Cool, wiki has an animated gif:

[ThoughtCriminal]

4. Groovy.

Really - what are those grooves?

[pokerfan]

5. It's a mystery

[Fumesucker]

8. Stretch marks?

It seems relevant that they appear to wrap around the equator of Vesta..

[laconicsax]

6. Obviously it was space lightening.

That's the only possible explanation. :eyes:

[spin]

2. K&R (n/t)

[byronius]

7. I seriously want to go get a closer look.

And frankly, I would like to sit on a crater edge and smoke a joint.

Not that I would ever do that.

Oh, perhaps in the late early mid-afternoon.

But never at dusk.

[Festivito]

9. I would think those rings are from its creation, not its collision.

Still hot, it separates, has metamorphic previously cooling layers that then show their stratification as circling ridges, then imploding when beyond the separation-stage gravity allowing for some bubbles, volcanic mounds, to exude along those strata and also creating a large rebounding indentation at the top, or bottom -- depending on your orientation.