The US space agency said on Monday that it has started perusing the incredible images from one of the asteroids orbiting the zone between Mars and Jupiter, which were provided by the spacecraft Dawn that reached the asteroid belt early in July.

Launched by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) in 2007, the ion propulsion-powered Dawn approached the 300-mile wide asteroid Vesta last month and commenced its transmission of clear pictures that further revealed the orbiting rock's surface.

According to The Associated Press, NASA's closer look on Vesta effectively handed to scientists new and surprising dimensions of the asteroid, which is about 117 million miles away from Earth and considered by experts as the second biggest orbiter in that asteroid region.

AP quoted University of California chief scientist Christopher Russell as saying that "we're seeing quite a varied surface," his comment largely referring to Vesta's newly-discovered northern zone that appears to have been battered by a gigantic collision billions of years ago.

On the other hand, NASA said that Vesta is relatively smoother on the southern side, as revealed by the new Dawn images, which numbers to more than 500 so far, but what really shocked researchers are the presence of cavernous canals on the asteroid's equator.

The space agency plans to collect science data from Vesta next week, by which time Dawn would be hovering 1700 miles above the asteroid's surface, which NASA said will get closer by as much as 110 miles for an orbiting task that will last some 365 days.

NASA revealed that Dawn's camera is being remotely operated by German scientist Holger Sierks, who marvelled at Vesta's 'rich features', specifically its three dominant craters that scientists have nicknamed 'Snowman'.

Sierks told AP that exploring the cratered region of Vesta will keep them busy for a number of years.

After its mission on Vesta, which NASA said costs some $466 million, Dawn will move on to a nearby asteroid called Ceres, which according to scientists is frosty compared to the rocky Vesta. The spacecraft will reach its second target by 2015, NASA said.

NASA and international researchers have been paying keen attention on asteroids as they were formed roughly around the same time of the solar system, with both Ceres and Vesta sharing the same conditions found on Earth and other inner members of our planetary system.