Matthew’s Book On ‘4 Vesta’ The Would Be Planet

By: Anura Guruge

Narrated by: Virtual Voice

Length: 9 hrs and 45 mins

Publisher's summary

4 Vesta, discovered in 1807 and named after the Roman virgin goddess of home and hearth, is the largest known asteroid (in terms of mass) in the solar system now, that 1 Ceres (like Pluto) is deemed a dwarf planet. It is the only naked eye visible asteroid. 4 Vesta’s real claim to fame, however, is neither its size nor its brightness. What really sets it apart is that it is a bona fide ‘protoplanet’ – a planetary embryo from a time billions of years ago when the solar system was slowly starting to take shape. It is actually a frozen in time relic of a nascent terrestrial planet à la the Earth with a differentiated structure very similar to that of Earth. It is sometimes called, albeit provocatively, the smallest terrestrial planet; Earth the largest. It is believed to have the oldest known surface in the solar system (given that it basically stopped evolving a few billion years ago, whereas the other terrestrials continued to undergo change). Given that NASA’s xenon ion thruster propelled Dawn spacecraft spent close to 14 months in orbit around it, between July 2011 and September 2012, sometimes getting within 130 miles of its surface, 4 Vesta is also, for now, the most thoroughly explored and imaged of asteroids. This book is an in-depth, soup-to-nuts, often quite technical exposition of this intriguing wannabe planet, uncompromisingly dealing with its characteristics, discovery, naming, formation, structure, classification and its exploration by Dawn. In every instance considerable effort has been devoted to provide extensive perspective and historical background particularly so in the chapters dealing with its discovery and exploration. Consequently this book though devoted to 4 Vesta is also a primer of sorts to most matters asteroidal. This book is meant to complement the books on dwarf planets and Comet ISON, C/2012 S1, by the same author. This book is known to contain typos. If typos bother you please do not buy this book. If you buy this book and find that the typos were an issue please return it and ask for a full refund. Over time new revisions will be made to eradicate the typos. These revisions will be available free of charge to those that do ‘own’ a prior version of this Kindle eBook. This Kindle book description will be updated to reflect the currently posted revision level and when that revision was posted. Currently at Edition 2. July 20, 2013.