Vesta (Asteroid)
522.77 km (324.8 mi)
Effective (mean) diameter
One of the biggest asteroids, with a giant crater near its south pole. About 523 km across on average.
Published
How big is that?
522.77 km is 59 times Mount Everest and 15% of the Moon.
Vesta is the 18th smallest of the 39 Cosmic Scale objects, and the 22nd largest of the 109 objects across all three SizeItUp games.
Size comparison
To scale, smallest to largest: Vesta in orange beside the Cosmic Scale objects nearest in size, in teal.
| Object | Size | vs Vesta |
|---|---|---|
| Phobos (Moon of Mars)A lumpy little moon. Measured along its longest side. | 26 km long | 5% of the size |
| Grand Canyon (Earth)Arizona's canyon, seen from above and measured along the Colorado River. | 446 km long | 85% of the size |
| Vesta (Asteroid) | 522.77 km across | – |
| Ceres (Dwarf planet)The biggest object in the asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter. | 939.4 km across | 1.8× bigger |
| Charon (Moon of Pluto)Pluto's largest moon, half its size. | 1,214 km across | 2.3× bigger |
In other units
| Metres | 522,770 |
|---|---|
| Kilometres | 522.77 |
| Feet | 1,715,000 |
| Yards | 571,700 |
| Miles | 324.8 |
How it's measured
Effective (mean) diameter. JPL Small-Body Database (Park et al. 2025).
This body is lumpy rather than round, so its size is given as an effective diameter: the width of a sphere with the same volume.
Sources
- ssd.jpl.nasa.gov: 4 Vesta: effective body diameter 522.77 km.
- ssd-api.jpl.nasa.gov (supporting): Same record from the SBDB API.
Checked against the source on .
Could you have guessed it by eye?
Vesta is one of the objects in Cosmic Scale, a daily size comparison game: you stretch a shape to the size you think is right beside one you know.