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The Rosetta spacecraft took its first close-up images of the asteroid Lutetia today, revealing it to be a heavily cratered, elongated rock.
Rosetta got within 2,000 miles of the asteroid, which is about 80 miles long and 4.5 billion years old. The closest images got down to less than 200 feet in resolution.
The spacecraft was traveling at around 9 miles per second, and the whole flyby took less than a minute. The European Space Agency mission is now focused on its primary target, comet Churyumov-Gerasimenko. Rosetta should arrive at the comet in 2014 and hang out with it for a few months and send a lander to the comet nucleus.
Image: ESA 2010 MPS for OSIRIS Team MPS/UPD/LAM/IAA/RSSD/INTA/UPM/DASP/IDA
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Rosetta’s OSIRIS Narrow Angle Camera took this shot 22,000 miles away from Lutetia with Saturn in the background.
Image: ESA 2010 MPS for OSIRIS Team MPS/UPD/LAM/IAA/RSSD/INTA/UPM/DASP/IDA
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This image shows a possible landslide and boulders. Zoom in at the highest resolution.
Image: ESA 2010 MPS for OSIRIS Team MPS/UPD/LAM/IAA/RSSD/INTA/UPM/DASP/IDA
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Lutetia was chosen as a target for a flyby partly because it is mysterious. It’s unclear whether it is a C-type asteroid left over from the early formation of the solar system, or an M-type asteroid associated with meteorites and thought to be pieces of the cores of larger objects.
Image: ESA 2010 MPS for OSIRIS Team MPS/UPD/LAM/IAA/RSSD/INTA/UPM/DASP/IDA
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The final approach images as Rosetta neared the Asteroid Lutetia.
Image: ESA 2010 MPS for OSIRIS Team MPS/UPD/LAM/IAA/RSSD/INTA/UPM/DASP/IDA
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Above, the asteroid from 50,000 miles away compared with its predicted shape.
Below, a sequence of approach images from 320,000 miles to 50,000 miles away from the asteroid.
Images: ESA 2010 MPS for OSIRIS Team MPS/UPD/LAM/IAA/RSSD/INTA/UPM/DASP/IDA
