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False-Color Image of an Impact Crater on Vesta

Aug. 24, 2011
NASA's Dawn spacecraft obtained this false-color image (right) of an impact crater in asteroid Vesta's equatorial region with its framing camera on July 25, 2011. The view on the left is from the camera's clear filter.

NASA's Dawn spacecraft obtained this false-color image of an impact crater in Vesta's equatorial region with its framing camera on July 25, 2011. The view on the left was taken through the camera's clear filter (left) and the false-color version on the right is composed of images through three color filters composed to a false color ratio image (right).

In this false Red-Green-Blue (RGB) color scheme, red is used for the ratio of the brightness at wavelengths of 750 nanometers to the brightness at 440 nanometers, green is used for the ratio to the brightness of 750 nanometers to 920 nanometers and blue is used for the ratio to the brightness at 440 nanometers to 750 nanometers. Red-blue tones capture the visible continuum and green tones capture the relative strength of the ferrous absorption band at 1 micron. The images have a resolution of about 490 meters per pixel.

The framing cameras were developed and built under the leadership of the Max Planck Institute for Solar System Research, Katlenburg-Lindau, Germany, with significant contributions by the German Aerospace Center (DLR) Institute of Planetary Research, Berlin, and in coordination with the Institute of Computer and Communication Network Engineering, Braunschweig. The framing camera project is funded by NASA, the Max Planck Society and DLR. JPL is a division of the California Institute of Technology, in Pasadena.

More information about Dawn is online at http://www.nasa.gov/dawn and http://dawn.jpl.nasa.gov.

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