Images: Dawn takes off for asteroid belt

On Thursday, NASA launched the Dawn spacecraft which is targeted to visit two of the largest bodies in the asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter. The probe is scheduled to be the first spacecraft to orbit and study the asteroid Vesta and the dwarf planet Ceres.

Here's the Dawn spacecraft with the asteroid Itokawa (inset) on which the Japanese space probe Hayabusa landed and took soil samples. Hayabusa was damaged during its landing and is currently limping back toward Earth.