Does Vesta Have Moons?

Authors :: McFadden, L. A
Sykes, M
Joy, S
Tricarico, P
O'Brien, D
Li, J. Y
Mutchler, M
Memarsadeghi, N
Safavi, H
Gutierrez-Marques, P
Nathues, A
Sierks, H
Schroder, S
Polansky, C
Jacobson, R
Russell, C. T
Raymond, C. A
Rayman, M
Weinstein-Weiss, S
Palmer, E
Publication Year :: 2011
Publisher :: United States: NASA Center for Aerospace Information (CASI), 2011.
Abstract: Previous searches for moons around Vesta have found nothing to an upper limit of 22.5 magnitude, that corresponds to 44 +/- 4 m diameter assuming the same albedo as Vesta. The Dawn mission's approach phase has dedicated satellite search observations consisting of two mosaic sequences bracketing the first observations of a complete rotation of Vesta scheduled for early July, 2011. In addition, we use the approach optical navigation image sequences for initial satellite searches. We will report any findings from these observations, and upper limits of magnitude and size.