[ExI] Dawn's Early Light: Ceres and Vesta

[Amara Graps]

In support of Dawn, to help answer the public's question:

"Why Ceres and Vesta?"

Here is one answer, some of which I would have said at the Dawn Science
Symposium, if the original, original plan for everything held.

Dawn's Early Light: Ceres and Vesta
http://www.scientificblogging.com/amaragraps/dawns_early_light_ceres_and_vesta

where I finish with :

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My Dawn Rocky Road Science List

Given that it is summer, and I'm located in Italy, where gelato is a
larger deity than Jupiter, here is my own rocky road list of science
questions that I would like the Dawn mission to help answer.

     * Where is the snow line and hence the emergence of water in the
     formation of the inner solar system?
     * How common are low temperature, aqueous processes in the early solar
     system?
     * What heated the asteroids?
     * When did the heating, melting, and differentiation occur in Vesta?
     * Where and when did most of the asteroids in the asteroid belt go?
     * Was the growth of Ceres truncated by Jupiter? When?
     * How fast is the step from asteroid-sized planetesimals to full-sized
     planets?

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Good luck to us all for the upcoming September / October launch
and the Dawn odyssey (*)!


(*) Odyssey:
1.  An extended adventurous voyage or trip.
2.  An intellectual quest


Amara

-- 

Amara Graps, PhD      www.amara.com
Associate Research Scientist, Planetary Science Institute (PSI), Tucson
INAF Istituto di Fisica dello Spazio Interplanetario (IFSI), Roma, Italia