The Dawn mission launched by NASA in 2007 and arrived at the Proto-planet Vesta in July has just finished its second mapping sequence.

It will continue one more year of conducting intense observations before embarking on another voyage to another intriguing subject, Ceres.

The Christian Science Monitor reported that both Vesta and Ceres orbit the sun between Mars and Jupiter amid a grouping of construction debris called main-belt asteroids. These are believed to be surplus from the process of planet formation almost 4.5 billion years ago.

One of the astonishing discoveries of the unmanned spacecraft is an image of what could be a heap of rocks supposedly three times higher than Mt. Everest.

Vesta is among small celestial objects bigger than the moon much like a smaller variety of a dwarf planet.

Clarkesville, an online publication, said that scientists connected with NASA's Dawn mission have presented their findings at the annual meeting of the Geological Society of America in Minnesota.

Indeed captured pictures showed that the asteroid's southern hemisphere boasts one of the largest mountains in the solar system

Carol Raymond of the Agency's Jet Propulsion laboratory said, "Vesta is the second most massive proto-planet because its density is so high, which is approximately 3.6 tons per cubic meter. We call it the smallest terrestrial planet because it looks like its evolution is similar to the Earth, the moon, Mars, and has some similarities to Mercury."

The duo's growth, however, was stunted - frozen in time - by gravity from a rapidly bulking Jupiter, according to Universe Today.

Researchers say that Vesta and Ceres can provide exceptional insights on an important stage of planet formation that until now has been the area of computer models.

It seems that the feature might be eligible as one of the Seven Wonders of the Solar System. In the center sits the asteroid belt's version of Mt. Everest - a mountain whose base covers over 100 miles and whose summit is an average of approximately13 miles above the nearby topography.