Visit To An Asteroid - Planetary Scientists To Find Out Composition, Structure Of Asteroids

June 1, 2007 — A NASA mission to two asteroids, one formed of lava and the other potentially containing water, will help find clues about the formation of our solar system.

Violent collisions once shook the universe sending rocky fragments, or asteroids, out to a region called the asteroid belt. Now, planetary scientists want to visit to get an up close look at two large asteroids.

Lucy MacFadden, Ph.D., a planetary scientist at the University of Maryland in College Park, Maryland, says, "We're launching a spacecraft to orbit two of the most massive asteroids in the main asteroid belt."

The Dawn mission is the first time a spacecraft will visit Vesta, a small asteroid that's been reshaped by ancient lava flows, and Ceres, the largest known asteroid, that has evidence of water. After the spacecraft launches in June, it reaches Vesta in four years and then Ceres in another three. But you will have a rare chance to see Vesta this month. If you look south, it will be to the right just above Jupiter. Meanwhile, scientists anticipate what they'll find. "To be honest, we really don't know what we will see, but we know we will see unexpected things," Dr. MacFadden says.

Studying asteroids also helps scientists learn more about the how the solar system formed, and uncover the many mysteries of planets. Dr. MacFadden says, "We will learn something about the early stages of planet formation that we cannot learn here on Earth."

The spacecraft's eight year journey will travel more then 3.2 billion miles, a distant learning experience that is worth the trip.

BACKGROUND: NASA is launching a spacecraft to the asteroid Vesta. In a few years, astronomers will be able to see this asteroid not as a small point of light, but as a small body from which the larger planets grew. Vesta could tell astronomers more about the state of the early solar system 4.5 billion years ago.

WHAT ARE ASTEROIDS? Asteroids are not the same as comets. Comets are essentially large, dirty snowballs. They are made of ice and frozen gases, mixed with rocky material and dust, and travel in large oval orbits, sometimes leaving our solar system. In contrast, asteroids are metallic, rocky bodies, without atmospheres, that orbit the Sun, just like planets, but are too small to be considered planets themselves. There are tens of thousands of them gathered into the main asteroid belt, a donut-shaped ring located between the orbits of Mars and Jupiter. Astronomers conclude they are made from primordial rock. Jupiter's strong gravity prevented these small bodies from forming into a planet when the solar system began 4.6 billion years ago.

ABOUT VESTA: Vesta is very different from many other known asteroids -- it's the only one with distinctive light and dark areas. It's much more evenly-colored, like the surface of the Moon. Images show evidence that lava once flowed on its surface, which has a geology resembling Earth or Mars. This means that the asteroid once had a molten interior, which contradicts the previous scientific idea that asteroids are the cold rocky fragments left over from the early days of planet formation. One idea is that Vesta is made up in part of radioactive "shrapnel" from a supernova explosion some four billion years ago, which may have melted the core to cause heavier elements to sink to the center while the lighter rock rose to the surface -- common for terrestrial planets.

DEEP IMPACT: Asteroids and comets have routinely collided with Earth since our planet was formed four billion years ago, although these are rarely catastrophic, because most aren't large enough. The total mass of all the asteroids combined is less than that of the Moon. But occasionally a very large asteroid -- a quarter mile wide or more -- will strike with devastating effects, such as the extinction of the dinosaurs. When an asteroid, or part of it, crashes into Earth, it is called a meteorite. There are currently two programs in the US to actively search for these near-earth objects: NASA's Near Earth Asteroid Tracking program and Spacewatch at the University of Arizona.

The American Astronomical Society  contributed to the information contained in the video portion of this report.

Note: This story and accompanying video were originally produced for the American Institute of Physics series Discoveries and Breakthroughs in Science by Ivanhoe Broadcast News and are protected by copyright law. All rights reserved.