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Score breakdown
· 8 badges
86 pts · Anomaly
Anomaly120 pts → Mythic
Giant body (>500 km)+22
Vesta, the brightest asteroid+20
Basaltic — a chip off a molten world+16
Brilliantly reflective surface+10
Notably bright (low H)+8
Has a proper name+8
Asteroid+1
Main-belt asteroid+1
Total score86
34 more points to reach Mythic.
Badges
🪨Asteroid· +1
🏔️Giant body (>500 km)· +22
💡Notably bright (low H)· +8
🏷️Has a proper name· +8
🥌Main-belt asteroid· +1
🪙Brilliantly reflective surface· +10
⛰️Basaltic — a chip off a molten world· +16
🪵Vesta, the brightest asteroid· +20
✨ Trivia
Hard to believe
🥇Round under its own weight. Big enough that its own gravity has pulled it into a sphere — most of its neighbours are potato-shaped rubble.
What it actually is
🛸Its orbit family. A main-belt asteroid, one of millions circling between Mars and Jupiter. Despite the films, the belt is so empty that every spacecraft sent through it has crossed without aiming for anything.
🌞Closest approach. At its nearest it comes within 2.15 AU of the Sun — inside the orbit of Jupiter.
🔁One lap. A single orbit around the Sun takes it about 3.6 years.
🥏How far it roams. Its orbit swings between 2.15 and 2.57 AU from the Sun.
Sense of scale
🧱Sense of scale. In everyday terms it is about 24.2× the length of Manhattan island.
🚶Walk around it. Walking its equator at a steady pace, eight hours a day, would take about 41.1 days.
Standing on it
🥶Sunlight there. Even at its closest the sunlight is only about 22% as strong as Earth's.
Properties
albedo
0.4228
aphelion au
2.57
designation
4
diameter km
522.77
eccentricity
0.0902
full name
4 Vesta (A807 FA)
h mag
3.25
inclination
7.14
mean motion deg day
0.2716
moid au
1.14
name
Vesta
named
yes
orbit class
MBA
perihelion au
2.148
rotation period h
5.3421
semi major au
2.361
spec taxonomy
V
spect
V
About Vesta
Vesta is an anomaly asteroid. It has spectral type V and swings within 2.148 AU of the Sun at perihelion.
A main-belt asteroid, one of millions circling between Mars and Jupiter. Despite the films, the belt is so empty that every spacecraft sent through it has crossed without aiming for anything.
How to see it
Like any astronomical target, Vesta is best seen from a dark site away from city lights, and when it is above the horizon depends on your latitude and the time of year. Because it moves against the background stars, the live position panel on this page tracks where it is right now. The visibility panel above works out tonight's viewing window for your saved location.
Why Vesta is an anomaly asteroid
Vesta scores 86 points on Spacedle's rarity scale, which places it in the anomaly tier. Another 34 points would lift it into a rarer tier.
That score comes from 8 science badges — Asteroid, Giant body (>500 km), Notably bright (low H), Has a proper name, Main-belt asteroid, Brilliantly reflective surface, Basaltic — a chip off a molten world and Vesta, the brightest asteroid — each earned for a real, measurable property of the object. Rarity on Spacedle is never random: the more remarkable an object's astrophysics, the more badges it collects, the higher it scores, and the rarer it ranks.
📷 Real photo