4 Vesta is one of the largest objects in the asteroid belt, with a mean diameter of 525 kilometers (326 mi). Vesta is thought to be the second-largest asteroid, both by mass and by volume, after the dwarf planet Ceres, though in volume it overlaps with the uncertainty in the measurements of 2 Pallas. It constitutes an estimated 9% of the mass of the asteroid belt.

Vesta is the only known remaining rocky protoplanet (with a differentiated interior) of the kind that formed the terrestrial planets. Numerous fragments of Vesta were ejected by collisions one and two billion years ago that left two enormous craters occupying much of Vesta's southern hemisphere. Debris from these events has fallen to Earth as howardite–eucrite–diogenite (HED) meteorites, which have been a rich source of information about Vesta.

Vesta is the brightest asteroid visible from Earth. It is regularly as bright as magnitude 5.1, at which times it is faintly visible to the naked eye. Its maximum distance from the Sun is slightly greater than the minimum distance of Ceres from the Sun, though its orbit lies entirely within that of Ceres.

NASA's Dawn spacecraft entered orbit around Vesta on 16 July 2011 for a one-year exploration and left the orbit of Vesta on 5 September 2012 en route to its final destination, Ceres. Researchers continue to examine data collected by Dawn for additional insights into the formation and history of Vesta.

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