An asteroid discovered over 200 years ago which is roughly the size of Germany would have catastrophic consequences for life on Earth if it ever hit the planet.

May 2025 is a prime time to explore the night sky, with Vesta taking center stage. Use our sky map to navigate the stars and planets, and don't miss the chance to observe this giant asteroid. Share ...

On March 29, 1807, the German astronomer Heinrich Olbers discovered the asteroid Vesta. Vesta is the second-largest body in the asteroid belt and is surpassed in size only by the dwarf planet Ceres.

Most of them have a diameter of between 20 to 100 kilometres, a few up to 500 kilometres, but none are larger than Ceres: with its 1000- kilometre diameter, it makes up more than a third of the total ...

Vesta is the Roman goddess of the hearth and home. photoguns – stock.adobe.com Named for the virgin Roman goddess of hearth, home and family whose symbol was the perpetual flame, the asteroid ...

The Dawn spacecraft launched in 2007 on its way to study two large objects in the main asteroid belt. It reached Vesta in 2011 and studied it for almost a year before heading off to intercept ...

and Vesta) survived mostly intact. So, while several of these worlds may have been destroyed billions of years ago, pieces of them still survive—on Earth, on other planets, or spread throughout the ...