Insights · May 13th, 2012
This archive futurist.com article was written by Glen Hiemstra, Futurist Emeritus. Glen Hiemstra founded Futurist.com in the 1990’s and is now Futurist Emeritus in the Think Tank. An internationally respected expert on creating preferred futures, long-range planning and assessing future trends, Glen has advised professional, business, community, and government organizations for three decades. He is available to work with incredible clients on futurist keynotes and foresight consulting projects.
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You will recall the recent announcement of an asteroid mining venture. Now you can come along with me and visit the asteroid Vesta, courtesy of a flyby generated by JPL. Their Dawn spacecraft is currently exploring the very large asteroid Vesta, before heading off to examine a second, Ceres.
Ceres and Vesta reside in the extensive zone between Mars and Jupiter together with many other smaller bodies, called the asteroid belt. Vesta is a very large asteroid resembling a small plant or moon more than we might imagine when we think “asteroid.” Dawn arrived at Vesta back in July 2011, and will continue to orbit Vesta collecting data until August 2012, when the craft will head for Ceres. You can learn much more about the mission at JPL Dawn Mission.
For now, let’s ride aboard NASA’s Dawn spacecraft on a virtual flyover of giant asteroid Vesta. Mission data was used to create the topography you see. Waypoints include: Divialia Fossa; Marcia crater, part of the “snowman” feature; and Aricia Tholus.
