NASA's Dawn probe, launched in 2007, entered orbit around the "protoplanet" Vesta in the asteroid belt July 16, 2011. It is the first spacecraft to visit Vesta and Ceres, a dwarf planet where Dawn is currently orbiting.
A protoplanet is a large planet embryo that originated...you know what? Here's the description on Wikipedia and you can figure it out, because I sure can't.
Vesta is the second-largest and second-most-massive object in the asteroid belt behind Ceres. It has an elliptical shape with diameters from 550 km x 462 km and its year is 3.6 Earth-years.
In September 2012, Dawn left Vesta and is now in orbit around Ceres.
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