Author Topic: Vesta is very old...  (Read 1277 times)

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Offline Flipside

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Vesta is very old...
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-18027933

The headline decribes it as 'the last of its kind', but I think that is kind of pompous considering how much of the Solar System we haven't looked at yet, but still, an interesting piece about how Vesta might well be one of the oldest objects in the Solar System (except the Sun) that we have identified.

 

Offline watsisname

Re: Vesta is very old...
Eh, like many articles the headline is a bit misleading.  Vesta is most certainly not the only original object from the formation of the solar system, it's just one of the largest (which does make somewhat special). 

There have been a good number of so-called 'primitive' meteorites which contain original materials from the solar nebula -- Allende is one of the best studied of these.  They put the age of the solar system at 4.567 billion years, give or take less than a million. :)

I'm really curious to find out what this mission will find at Ceres and how it compares to Vesta.  Also what New Horizons will discover at Pluto!
In my world of sleepers, everything will be erased.
I'll be your religion, your only endless ideal.
Slowly we crawl in the dark.
Swallowed by the seductive night.

 

Offline Mongoose

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Re: Vesta is very old...
Discoveries aside, I'm most excited to see a decent picture of Pluto.  Looking at 30 pixels or so from Hubble doesn't do all that much for the imagination. :p