First image of Vesta taken by Dawn has arrived!

At long last! I must have written about two dozen posts on this subject alone, and finally we have a picture.

The first image of Vesta by Dawn was taken on the 3rd of this month, and it looks like this.

Just as expected, it's clearly the most brilliant object in the sky but still far from being anything close to what the Hubble Space Telescope has given us. But no fear, resolution will improve rapidly and we will be given the unique treat of an extremely slow approach. Other approaches to objects have been flybys, lasting anywhere from just a few hours to a few days. This one will happen over the next three months, and I'm going to enjoy every bit of it (and will probably post every time a new image comes in too).