Vesta is a very large asteroid circling the sun between Mars and Jupiter, inside the main asteroid belt. NASA JPL does not treat Vesta as potentially hazardous, because its orbit never carries it near Earth.
One lap around the sun takes Vesta 1,330 days (3.64 years). Over that circuit it swings between 2.15 AU and 2.57 AU from the sun, travelling at an average of 19.32 km/s. At 525.4 kilometers across, Vesta is roughly the size of Great Britain.
Vesta has been watched long enough to time its spin: one full turn on its axis takes 5.34 hours.
Vesta is classed as V on the Tholen scale, V on SMASSII.
At their nearest, the orbits of Vesta and Earth stay 1.14 AU apart. That is a comfortable margin, and it holds at every point in the orbit.
Orbital simulations run by NASA JPL's CNEOS turn up no close approaches to Earth.
The orbit of Vesta is pinned down by sightings going back to Sept. 23, 1950, the most recent officially logged on March 17, 2021. The IAU Minor Planet Center holds 9,451 observations behind that solution.
A ◯ pink circle marks where Vesta sits. It may fall outside your current field of view — use the controls below to change the position, location and time.