Vesta and Orion

Night Sky Sights

Vesta Sets Sail Across Orion

Look who's visiting this winter in Orion: Vesta, a bright asteroid with a dark side.

Battered Vesta

Asteroids

Observe Vesta — and Own a Piece of It, Too

Vesta's bright and easy to find in binoculars and maybe even with the naked eye in late summer skies. It's also just as easy to acquire a piece of it without a multi-billion dollar space mission.

Asteroids

Vesta Gets Close and Bright

Vesta, the brightest asteroid, puts on one of its best shows ever in June, when it shines enough to see without optical aid.

Vesta in early 2017

Celestial News & Events

Vesta, Brightest Asteroid, Now High Overhead

The asteroid 4 Vesta shines at 6th magnitude in January 2017, visible in Gemini with binoculars or a small telescope.

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Orbital Path Podcasts with Michelle Thaller

Orbital Path 8: A Tale of Two Asteroids - Vesta and Ceres

Host Michelle Thaller speaks with Lucy McFadden, co-investigator of NASA’s Dawn Mission that traveled 130 million miles to orbit the asteroids Vesta and Ceres.