New research is challenging the conventional understanding of Vesta, a sizable asteroid. For a long time, scientists believed Vesta possessed a core, similar to planets. However, a recent study led by NASA's JPL suggests otherwise, proposing that Vesta might actually be a fragment of a proto-planet.
The team reanalyzed data from the Dawn mission and found no evidence supporting the existence of a core within Vesta. This finding casts doubt on the idea that Vesta was a protoplanet that failed to fully develop. Instead, the research suggests two alternative possibilities: either Vesta underwent incomplete differentiation, or it is debris resulting from a collision during the early stages of planet formation.
By carefully examining Vesta's rotation and gravity field using refined measurements from the Dawn mission, scientists discovered that its behavior doesn't align with that of a celestial body containing a core. This new data indicates that Vesta's history is more intricate than previously assumed. To further validate these hypotheses, researchers plan to conduct additional studies on Vesta meteorites and continue analyzing data from the Dawn mission.