First Closeup of Metal Asteroid

[Christopher K.]

The Rosetta spacecraft, with NASA instruments, flew by Lutetia yesterday at fifteen kilometers per second at about 11:10am CDT. This is the first time a spacecraft has flown by an asteroid composed mainly of metals.

21 Lutetia is about 100 kilometers across. The images reveal it to be lumpy and cratered--no surprises there. However, one tantalizing picture shows a possible landslide, which intuitively doesn't seem possible on an object of that mass. Look at http://www.nasa.gov/topics/solarsystem/features/Close-up.html.

Rosetta flew by 2867 Steins in September 2008, although that visit saw problems with the high-res camera. Rosetta will soon go into hibernation, to be awakened later for an encounter in 2014 with Comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko.

Rosetta fact sheet:
http://esamultimedia.esa.int/docs/rosetta/Rosetta_fact_sheetv3.pdf

More information at:
http://www.nasa.gov/topics/solarsystem/features/rosetta20100709.html
http://www.skyandtelescope.com/news/home/98170374.html