Vesta's surface is characterized by abundant impact craters, some with preserved ejecta blankets, large troughs extending around the equatorial region, enigmatic dark material, and widespread mass wasting, but as yet an absence of volcanic features. Abundant steep slopes indicate that impact-generated surface regolith is underlain by bedrock. Dawn observations confirm the large impact basin (Rheasilvia) at Vesta's south pole and reveal evidence for an earlier, underlying large basin (Veneneia). Vesta's geology displays morphological features characteristic of the Moon and terrestrial planets as well as those of other asteroids, underscoring Vesta's unique role as a transitional solar system body.

We derived model functions for the crater production size-frequency distribution and chronology of the asteroids 951 Gaspra, 243 Ida, 21 Lutetia and 4 Vesta, based on a lunar-like crater production function and a lunar-like chronology with a smooth exponential decay in impact rate for the first $ 1 Ga of Solar System history. For Gaspra, Ida and Lutetia we find surface ages roughly in agreement with published data. Using the same approach for Vesta leads to results with high correlation to Ar-Ar reset ages of HED meteorites, for which a strong dynamical and spectroscopic connection to Vesta has been found. In contrast to recently published young formation ages of the Rheasilvia and Veneneia basins of about 1 and 2 Ga, respectively, we find for Rheasilvia a formation age of 3.57 0.1 Ga and for the Veneneia formation a lower limit of 3.7 70.1 Ga. For comparison we also give surface model ages for a preliminary version of a chronology (pers. comm. D.P. O'Brien) based on the Late Heavy Bombardment theory. Error bars presented in our work stem only from statistical analysis of measured crater distributions and do not include the uncertainty of the used chronology model.

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The near-Earth asteroid (162173) Ryugu is a 900-m-diameter dark object expected to contain primordial material from the solar nebula. The Mobile Asteroid Surface Scout (MASCOT) landed on Ryugu’s surface on 3 October 2018. We present images from the MASCOT camera (MASCam) taken during the descent and while on the surface. The surface is covered by decimeter- to meter-sized rocks, with no deposits of fine-grained material. Rocks appear either bright, with smooth faces and sharp edges, or dark, with a cauliflower-like, crumbly surface. Close-up images of a rock of the latter type reveal a dark matrix with small, bright, spectrally different inclusions, implying that it did not experience extensive aqueous alteration. The inclusions appear similar to those in carbonaceous chondrite meteorites.

[1] The Rheasilvia crater is Vesta's largest impact basin. It is a 500 km diameter complex crater centered near the south pole and overlying the 400 km diameter impact basin Veneneia. Using Framing Camera (FC) data from the Dawn spacecraft's Low Altitude Mapping Orbit (20 m/pixel) and a digital terrain model derived from High Altitude Mapping Orbit stereo data, we identified various mass-wasting features within the south polar region. These features include intra-crater mass movements, flow-like and creep-like structures, slumping areas, landslides, and curved radial and concentric ridges. Intra-crater mass-wasting features are represented by lobate slides, talus material, dark patches on the crater wall, spurs along the crater rim and boulders. Slumping areas develop in compact material, whereas landslides form in relatively loose material. Both may be triggered by seismic shaking induced by impacts. Intra-crater mass wasting and slid and slumped materials are homogeneously distributed throughout the basin. Slumping and sliding processes have contributed most efficiently to basin degradation. Flow-like and creep-like features originate from granular material and cluster between 0 ı E and 90 ı E, an area exposing shocked and fractured material from the Rheasilvia impact event. The radial curved ridges are likely to be remnants of the early Rheasilvia collapse process, when radially moving masses were deflected by the Coriolis Effect. The concentric ridges are artifacts from the crater rim collapse. Curved ridges at the intersection of Rheasilvia and Veneneia, and on Rheasilvia's central peak, may also have been influenced by the Rheasilvia basin relaxation process, and an oblique impact, respectively.