Editing 4 Vesta (section)

===Discovery===
{{stack|[[File:Ceres and Vesta, Moon size comparison.jpg|alt=|thumb|Vesta, [[Ceres (dwarf planet)|Ceres]], and the [[Moon]] with sizes shown to scale]]}}
[[Heinrich Olbers]] discovered [[2 Pallas|Pallas]] in 1802, the year after the discovery of [[Ceres (dwarf planet)|Ceres]].  He proposed that the two objects were the remnants of a [[Phaeton (hypothetical planet)|destroyed planet]].  He sent a letter with his proposal to the British astronomer [[William Herschel]], suggesting that a search near the locations where the orbits of Ceres and Pallas intersected might reveal more fragments. These orbital intersections were located in the [[constellation]]s of [[Cetus]] and [[Virgo (constellation)|Virgo]].<ref name="Littmann2004"/>  Olbers commenced his search in 1802, and on 29 March 1807 he discovered Vesta in the constellation Virgo—a coincidence, because Ceres, Pallas, and Vesta are not fragments of a larger body.  Because the asteroid [[3 Juno|Juno]] had been discovered in 1804, this made Vesta the fourth object to be identified in the region that is now known as the [[asteroid belt]].  The discovery was announced in a letter addressed to German astronomer [[Johann Hieronymus Schröter|Johann H. Schröter]] dated 31 March.<ref name="Lynn1907"/>  Because Olbers already had credit for discovering a planet (Pallas; at the time, the asteroids were considered to be planets), he gave the honor of naming his new discovery to German mathematician [[Carl Friedrich Gauss]], whose orbital calculations had enabled astronomers to confirm the existence of Ceres, the first asteroid, and who had computed the orbit of the new planet in the remarkably short time of 10 hours.<ref name="Dunnington2004"/><ref name="Rao2003"/>  Gauss decided on the [[Roman mythology|Roman]] virgin goddess of home and hearth, [[Vesta (mythology)|Vesta]].<ref name="MPDictionary"/>