An Italian 'eye' is to take a close look at asteroids in NASA's latest effort to trace the origins of the Solar System.
The Italian Space Agency (ASI) and the National Astrophysics Agency (INAF) built the new tool, the Visual and Infrared Spectrometer (VIR), one of the key detection devices on board a NASA mission that blasts off from Cape Canaveral Thursday.
It will be the first time that a probe - dubbed Dawn - will travel into the asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter that contains huge numbers of these so-called 'protoplanets'.
"This is one of the most fascinating missions of the last few years because it is looking for information capable of reconstructing the origins of the Solar System, as if it were travelling back in time," ASI said.
Dawn will take four years to reach the Vesta asteroid, one of the largest in the Solar System, ASI said.
Three years later it is scheduled to sweep around Ceres, an asteroid that was recently upgraded to the status of a small planet.
"These are the biggest of the myriad solar 'fossils' wandering between Mars and Jupiter so they should provide the best source of the kind of information we need," ASI said.
"What is more, they have remained intact since they were formed".
Ceres, the largest asteroid and the first to be discovered, is named after the Roman goddess of agriculture.
It was discovered by Giuseppe Piazzi of the Palermo Observatory on Jan. 1, 1801.
Vesta, the brightest asteroid, is named for the ancient Roman goddess of the hearth and is the only asteroid ever visible with the naked eye. Found on March 29, 1807, by Heinrich Olbers, it was the fourth minor planet to be discovered.
"Dawn aims to bring images of varied landscapes including mountains, canyons, craters, lava flows, polar caps and, possibly, ancient lakebeds, streambeds and gullies," the mission website said.
