NASA launches craft to asteroid belt

NASA's Dawn spacecraft blasted off Thursday morning in Cape Canaveral, Florida for an eight-year, 5-billion-
kilometre journey to the solar system's asteroid belt, according to dpa.
The craft boosted by a Delta II rocket will travel to Vesta and
Ceres in the asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter.
Scientists hope information from the two different types of
bodies, a dwarf planet and an asteroid, will yield clues to the
beginning of the solar system 4.6 billion years ago.
Dawn is set to reach the dwarf planet Vesta in 2011 and to leave
for the icy asteroid Ceres several months later.
Technical problems and weather delayed Dawn's launch several
times.