All Aboard the Dawn Spacecraft!
During the “Send Your Name to the Asteroid Belt” campaign, at NASA's JPL site:
more than 360,000 people signed up to participate in a virtual voyage to the asteroid belt. The computer chip holding all the participants’ names has now been installed on the Dawn spacecraft in preparation for flight in June.
I managed to add most of my family names to the 'chip' for it's journey to Vesta and Ceres and who knows beyond...
I think that it is amazing that we are being digitally transported to Deep Space and to Mars! Even if the spacecraft doesn't make it that 'chip' will float around space until eternity...makes you think a bit doesn't it!!
The Vesta Asteroid can be be seen at the moment near to Jupiter with binoculars but gets brighter in about a weeks time. The surface of Vesta has a high reflective surface and will in fact make it visible with a naked eye as long as you know where to look!
I'm going to try to find it next time the sky is clear...watch this space!
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