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Rosetta sends back gorgeous asteroid closeups | Bad Astronomy

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The European space probe Rosetta passed about 3000 km from the asteroid Lutetia on Saturday, July 10, 2010, and it sent back incredible closeup images of the rock. Check ’em out below!

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<p>This series of pictures was taken as Rosetta approached Lutetia.</p><p>The first image in the upper left was taken about 9.5 hours before closest approach, when Rosetta was still 510,000 km (315,000 miles) from the asteroid - more distant than the Moon is from the Earth!</p><p>The last image (lower right) was obtained an hour and a half before the close encounter when the probe was still 81,000 km (50,000 miles) from Lutetia.</p><p>In the first image, details only about 20 km (12 miles) across can be seen, but that improves by almost a factor of 10 in the last image!</p><p><span><em>Credit: ESA 2010 MPS for OSIRIS Team. MPS/UPD/LAM/IAA/RSSD/INTA/UPM/DASP/IDA</em></span></p><span>This is the final sequence of images taken right at closest approach. The bottom right image was taken just at the moment that Rosetta passed Lutetia.<em><br /><br /><br />Credit: ESA 2010 MPS for OSIRIS Team. MPS/UPD/LAM/IAA/RSSD/INTA/UPM/DASP/IDA</em></span>For the first time ever, a spacecraft approached closely enough to the asteroid Lutetia to see its surface clearly. Craters dot the surface, as well as grooves. Note the elongated crater near the bottom (left of center); was that from a nearly horizontal impact? It's curious that it points almost directly to the crater to the left. That may just be coincidence; the surface is so cratered that some are bound to be in patterns just randomly.<br /><span><em><br />Credit: ESA 2010 MPS for OSIRIS Team. MPS/UPD/LAM/IAA/RSSD/INTA/UPM/DASP/IDA</em></span>Another closeup of Lutetia's surface provided by Rosetta. In this shot, you can again see a variety of craters peppering the asteroid, as well as some grooves that follow the landscape. Those curves give a relative age for the grooves: they must have formed <em>after</em> the impact crater on the right, which distorted the landscape. Also, had they formed before, the impact would have eradicated them. Images like this can give scientists a vast amount of insight into the history of the asteroid.<br /><span><em><br />Credit: ESA 2010 MPS for OSIRIS Team. MPS/UPD/LAM/IAA/RSSD/INTA/UPM/DASP/IDA</em></span><span>After Rosetta passed Lutetia, its cameras were pointed back to the rock, and therefore back toward the inner solar system. That geometry gives us an amazing, brooding, and lovely view we never get from Earth: a crescent asteroid.<em> <br /><br />Credit: ESA 2010 MPS for OSIRIS Team. MPS/UPD/LAM/IAA/RSSD/INTA/UPM/DASP/IDA</em></span><span>When Rosetta was still 36,000 km (22,000 miles) from Lutetia, it snapped this jaw-dropping shot of the asteroid with Saturn in the distant background. This means the spacecraft, the asteroid, and Saturn were almost exactly along the same line, a configuration that probably only lasted for a few seconds. It's remarkable that controllers on the ground were able to take this picture at just the right moment to obtain this amazing picture!<br /><em><br /><br />Credit: ESA 2010 MPS for OSIRIS Team. MPS/UPD/LAM/IAA/RSSD/INTA/UPM/DASP/IDA</em></span>

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Emily Lakdawalla at the Planetary Society Blog has more details, as always.

Related posts:

- Rosetta takes some home pictures
- Rosetta swings past home one final time
- Rosetta swings by Mars


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  1. Astronomy
  2. Rosetta sends back gorgeous asteroid