Editing 4 Vesta (section)

===Name and symbol===
Vesta was the fourth asteroid to be discovered, hence the number&nbsp;4 in its formal designation. The name ''Vesta'', or national variants thereof, is in international use with two exceptions: [[Greece]] and China. In [[Modern Greek|Greek]], the name adopted was the Hellenic equivalent of Vesta, [[Hestia]] {{nobr|({{lang|el|4 {{math|Εστία}}}});}} in English, that name is used for {{nobr|[[46 Hestia]]}} (Greeks use the name "Hestia" for both, with the minor-planet numbers used for disambiguation). In [[Standard Chinese|Chinese]], Vesta is called the 'hearth-god(dess) star', {{lang|zh|灶神星}} ''{{Transliteration|zh|Zàoshénxīng}}'', naming the asteroid for Vesta's role, similar to the Chinese names of [[Uranus]], [[Neptune]], and [[Pluto]].{{efn| {{lang|zh|維斯塔}} ''wéisītǎ'' is the closest Chinese approximation of the Latin pronunciation ''westa''.}}

Upon its discovery, Vesta was, like Ceres, Pallas, and Juno before it, classified as a planet and given a [[Astronomical symbols|planetary symbol]]. The symbol represented the altar of Vesta with its [[Sacred fire of Vesta|sacred fire]] and was designed by Gauss.<ref name=mcbeh-v15/><ref name="effemeridi-1809"/> In Gauss's conception, now obsolete, this was drawn {{nobr|[[File:Vesta symbol (original, fixed width).svg|x20px|Gauss's version of the astronomical symbol for Vesta]]}}. His form is in the pipeline for [[Unicode]] 17.0 as U+1F777 {{math|🝷}}.<ref name=astunicode>{{cite report |last1=Bala |first1=Gavin Jared |last2=Miller |first2=Kirk |date=18 September 2023 |title=Unicode request for historical asteroid symbols |via=unicode.org |publisher=[[Unicode Consortium]] |url=https://www.unicode.org/L2/L2023/23207-historical-asteroids.pdf |access-date=26 September 2023 }}</ref><ref name=pipeline>{{cite web |title=Proposed new characters |series=The Pipeline |date= |website=unicode.org |publisher=[[Unicode Consortium]] |url=https://unicode.org/alloc/Pipeline.html |access-date=6 November 2023 }}</ref>{{efn|
Some sources contemporaneous to Gauss invented more elaborate forms, such as [[File:Vesta symbol (old elaborate).svg|x20px|Temple form of the astronomical symbol for Vesta]] and [[File:Vesta symbol (old elaborate 2).svg|x20px|Elaborate form of the astronomical symbol for Vesta]].<ref name=annuaire-1808/><ref name=Canovai1810/> A simplification of the latter from {{circa|1930}}, [[File:Vesta symbol (Koch, fixed width).svg|x20px|Koch's simplification of the symbol for Vesta]],<ref>{{cite book |first=Rudolf |last=Koch |orig-year=1930 |year=1955 |title=The Book of Signs |publisher=Dover |edition=reprint }}</ref> never caught on.
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The asteroid symbols were gradually retired from astronomical use after 1852, but the symbols for the first four asteroids were resurrected for astrology in the 1970s. The abbreviated modern astrological variant of the Vesta symbol is {{nobr|[[File:Vesta symbol (fixed width).svg|x20px|Astrological version of the astronomical symbol for Vesta]] (U+26B6 {{math|⚶}})}}.<ref name=astunicode/>{{efn|
This symbol can be seen in the top of the most elaborate of the earlier forms, [[File:Vesta symbol (old elaborate 2).svg|x20px|Elaborate form of the astronomical symbol for Vesta]]. It dates from 1973, at the beginning of astrological interest in asteroids.<ref>{{cite book |first=Eleanor |last=Bach |year=1973 |title=Ephemerides of the asteroids: Ceres, Pallas, Juno, Vesta, 1900–2000 |publisher=Celestial Communications |bibcode=1973eacp.book.....B }}</ref>
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After the discovery of Vesta, no further objects were discovered for 38&nbsp;years, and during this time the Solar System was thought to have eleven planets.<ref name=18planets/> However, in 1845, new asteroids started being discovered at a rapid pace, and by 1851 there were fifteen, each with its own symbol, in addition to the eight major planets ([[Neptune]] had been discovered in 1846). It soon became clear that it would be impractical to continue inventing new planetary symbols indefinitely, and some of the existing ones proved difficult to draw quickly. That year, the problem was addressed by [[Benjamin Apthorp Gould]], who suggested numbering asteroids in their order of discovery, and placing this number in a disk (circle) as the generic symbol of an asteroid. Thus, the fourth asteroid, Vesta, acquired the generic symbol {{big|④}}. This was soon coupled with the name into an official number–name designation, {{nobr|''{{big|④}} Vesta'',}} as the number of minor planets increased. By 1858, the circle had been simplified to parentheses, {{nobr|''(4) Vesta'',}} which were easier to typeset. Other punctuation, such as {{nobr|''4) Vesta''}} and {{nobr|''4, Vesta'',}} was also briefly used, but had more or less completely died out by 1949.<ref name=WhenbecameMPs/>