VESTA

Pronunciation (US):

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 Dictionary entry overview: What does Vesta mean? 

• VESTA (noun)
  The noun VESTA has 2 senses:

1. (Roman mythology) goddess of the hearth and its fire whose flame was tended by vestal virgins; counterpart of Greek Hestia

2. the brightest asteroid but the fourth to be discovered

  Familiarity information: VESTA used as a noun is rare.

 Dictionary entry details 

• VESTA (noun)

Sense 1

Meaning:

(Roman mythology) goddess of the hearth and its fire whose flame was tended by vestal virgins; counterpart of Greek Hestia

Classified under:

Nouns denoting people

Instance hypernyms:

Roman deity (a deity worshipped by the ancient Romans)

Domain category:

Roman mythology (the mythology of the ancient Romans)

Sense 2

Meaning:

The brightest asteroid but the fourth to be discovered

Classified under:

Nouns denoting natural objects (not man-made)

Instance hypernyms:

asteroid (any of numerous small celestial bodies composed of rock and metal that move around the sun (mainly between the orbits of Mars and Jupiter))

Derivation:

vestal (of or relating to Vesta)

 Context examples 

By comparison, Vesta has an average diameter of 525 kilometers, and is the second most massive body in the belt.

(Dawn Spacecraft Begins Approach to Dwarf Planet Ceres, NASA)

Scientists also have found that, as they suspected, Ceres is much less dense than Earth, the moon, giant asteroid Vesta (Dawn's previous target) and other rocky bodies in our solar system.

(What's Inside Ceres? New Findings from Gravity Data, NASA)

It was a wax vesta half burned, which was so coated with mud that it looked at first like a little chip of wood.

(The Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

The object is the fourth largest in the asteroid belt after Ceres, Vesta and Pallas.

(ESO Telescope Reveals What Could be the Smallest Dwarf Planet Yet in the Solar System, ESO)

Hin's team analyzed rocks from Earth using a mass spectrometer, and compared their chemical ingredients with off-world sources: meteorite chondrites (space rocks) plus samples from Mars and the asteroid Vesta.

(Fiery Collisions That Gave Birth to Earth Could Have Evaporated 40% of Our World, The Titi Tudorancea Bulletin)

Dawn previously explored the protoplanet Vesta for 14 months, from 2011 to 2012, capturing detailed images and data about that body.

(Dawn Spacecraft Begins Approach to Dwarf Planet Ceres, NASA)