But it has been luckier than vesta-and almost every other asteroid-in avoiding collisions, and has thus not yielded a huge crop of meteorites for Earth-bound scientists to examine.

但在避免碰撞方面，它比灶神星要幸运得多——几乎比其它任何小行星也都幸运，因此它没有产生可供地球科学家研究的大量陨石。

youdao

Launched in 2007, Dawn is the first mission to explore Vesta and Ceres, the two largest members of the asteroid belt.

“黎明号”于2007年发射升空，是首个探测小行星带两颗最大天体灶神星和谷神星的飞行器。

youdao

If all goes to plan, then on July 16th Dawn, the largest robotic probe ever launched by America's space agency, will drop into orbit around Vesta, the second-largest member of the asteroid belt.

如果一切按计划行事，那么，7月16日，美国航天机构有史以来发射最大的机器人探测器——“黎明”号——将顺便进入小行星带第二大成员——灶神星——的轨道。

youdao

The American space agency's Dawn spacecraft began circling Vesta, a member of the asteroid belt that orbits the sun.

VOA: special.2011.07.27

"We will use the tremendous capabilities of this ion propulsion system to climb out of orbit around Vesta, travel for almost another three years through the asteroid belt to dwarf planet Ceres and then go into orbit around Ceres and undertake the same kind of measurements there that we'll be doing at Vesta.

VOA: special.2011.07.27

It was originally classified as a eucrite, a group of meteorites thought to be from the asteroid Vesta.

BBC: Mercury meteorite puzzle

The Dawn probe was launched in 2007 and has already sent back dramatic pictures from the giant asteroid Vesta.

CNN: While you were working: An asteroid just flew by

Unlike any other asteroid known today, Vesta has an iron core surrounded by layers of mantle rock and crust, similar to Earth and Mars, preliminary gravity and density measurements suggest.

WSJ: Asteroid Vesta Gets a Close Study