Claudia is a small (700 meter) crater that defines the

prime meridian A prime meridian is an arbitrary meridian (a line of longitude) in a geographic coordinate system at which longitude is defined to be 0°. Together, a prime meridian and its anti-meridian (the 180th meridian in a 360°-system) form a great ...

of asteroid

4 Vesta Vesta (minor-planet designation: 4 Vesta) is one of the largest objects in the asteroid belt, with a mean diameter of . It was discovered by the German astronomer Heinrich Wilhelm Matthias Olbers on 29 March 1807 and is named after Vesta, the ...

in the coordinate system used by the ''Dawn'' mission team, NASA, and the IAU ''Gazetteer of Planetary Nomenclature'', though it is not accepted by the IAU as a whole. It is located at 1.6°S and 4.0°W.Claudia crater
''Gazetteer of Planetary Nomenclature'', retrieved 2012-09-15 Claudia was chosen because it is small, sharply defined, easy to find, and near the equator. The prime meridian runs 4° to the west. This results in a more logical set of mapping quadrants than the IAU coordinate system, which drifts over time due to an error in calculating the position of the pole, and is based on the 200 km Olbers Regio, which is so poorly defined that it is not even visible to the ''Dawn'' spacecraft. The crater was named after the Roman Vestal Virgin Claudia on 2011 September 30.

References

Impact craters on asteroids Surface features of 4 Vesta {{asteroid-stub