An alternate explanation that fits the evidence is that Vesta was once part of a planet – but which planet that might been remains a mystery.

Vesta is the second most massive body in the asteroid belt, surpassed only by Ceres, which is classified as a dwarf planet. The brightest asteroid in the sky, Vesta is occasionally visible from ...

For decades, scientists thought that Vesta was a protoplanet rather than an asteroid. NASA's Dawn mission seemed to confirm that, but new research is calling it into question. . | Credit ...

When you buy through links on our articles, Future and its syndication partners may earn a commission. An image of Vesta captured as NASA's Dawn spacecraft retreated from the asteroid in 2012.

The giant asteroid Vesta got clobbered not once but twice, and it has the scars to prove it. Ever since the Hubble Space Telescope spied a huge depression in the asteroid's south pole, scientists ...

This group of meteorites is likely to have come from Vesta, the second-largest asteroid in our solar system, located in the asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter. "Combining the observations of ...

The protoplanet Vesta, a large space rock in the solar system's asteroid belt, is covered with a surprising amount of hydrogen, and bits of Vesta may have rained down on Earth in the form of ...

The large asteroid Vesta is a true relic of our Solar System's early history. Thanks to the recent detailed study by the Dawn spacecraft, we know it's an intact protoplanet, the type of object ...

Vesta, an asteroid the size of Arizona, gets its own geologic map showing its history of meteorite impact craters over its billions of years of existence. Freelance writer Amanda C. Kooser covers ...

The giant asteroid Vesta may contain a vast supply of water ice, a supply that has sat frozen for billions of years, a new study reveals. The surface of Vesta — the second-largest object in the ...

The asteroid Vesta could be a huge chunk of planet that was blasted off its parent world and sent spinning into space in the aftermath of a titanic collision four-and-a-half billion years ago.