Huge troughs on Vesta – a result of mega impacts at the south pole
Huge troughs on Vesta – a result of mega impacts at the south pole
As NASA’s Dawn spacecraft sent the first images of Vesta back to Earth in July 2011, scientists immediately noticed numerous troughs, as if carved with a gigantic plough. This image shows two troughs in the Divalia Fossa system, running parallel to the lower edge of the image. The majority of these troughs extend along the equator, but a second group – inclined with respect to the equator – have been identified in the northern hemisphere. These parallel trenches are usually several hundred kilometres long, up to 15 kilometres wide and more than one kilometre in depth. They are the result of two large asteroid impacts at the South Pole, demonstrating that impact events that occurred hundreds of kilometres apart caused shocks throughout Vesta and altered its surface.
