January 13, 2014
This composite image is from NASA's Dawn mission and it shows the flow of material inside and outside a crater called Aelia on the giant asteroid Vesta. The area is around 14 degrees south latitude. The images that went into this composite were obtained by Dawn's framing camera from September to October 2011.
NASA, Aelia crater, asteroid Vesta, Dawn Mission
To the naked eye, these structures would not be seen. But here, they stand out in blue and red. The crater has a diameter of 2.7 miles (4.3 kilometers). The exact origin of the flow structures is unknown. A possible explanation is that the impact that produced the crater could have created liquid material with different minerals than the surroundings.
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