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NASA's Dawn mission spent 14 months orbiting the asteroid Vesta. Vesta's an unusual object too small to be a dwarf planet. Yet it has the Solar System's tallest mountain and canyons comparable to Earth's Grand Canyon. It may also be the key to understanding the early Solar System.

Vesta Facts for Kids

Asteroid (and protoplanet) Vesta is quite small. Here Vesta's size is compared to some other Solar System bodies. It's surface area is about twice that of the state of California.

Here's a mosaic of images which gives a good view of Vesta. NASA's Dawn mission studied Vesta from July 2011 to September 2012. The towering mountain at the south pole - more than twice the height of Mount Everest - is just visible at the bottom of the image. The set of three craters known as the "snowman" can be seen at the top left.

Image credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/UCAL/MPS/DLR/IDA