English: A False-Color Topography of Vesta's South Pole

September 16, 2011 - PASADENA, Calif. -- This false-color map of the giant asteroid Vesta was created from stereo images obtained by the framing camera aboard NASA’s Dawn spacecraft. The image shows the elevation of surface structures with a horizontal resolution of about 750 meters per pixel.

The terrain model of Vesta's southern hemisphere shows a big circular structure with a diameter of about 300 miles (500 kilometers), its rim rising above the interior of the structure for more than 9 miles (15 kilometers.) From low-resolution images of the Hubble Space Telescope it was known that a big depression existed at Vesta’s south pole, suggestive of being a big impact basin. Scientists on the Dawn team are still investigating the processes that formed this structure.