Monday, July 12, 2010

Rosetta flyby of asteroid (21) Lutetia

On July 10, 2010 ESA's Rosetta spacecraft imaged asteroid Lutetia within an estimated distance of 3170 kilometers. Lutetia (the largest asteroid yet visited by a spacecraft) was discovered in 1852 from the Paris balcony of French painter turned astronomer Hermann Goldschmidt. To honour his home city, he called it 'Lutetia', after the Roman name for Paris.

In 2008 Rosetta encountered the asteroid (2867) Steins at a distance of 802.6 km.

All images: CREDIT: (C) ESA 2010 MPS for OSIRIS Team MPS/UPD/LAM/IAA/RSSD/INTA/UPM/DASP/IDA



Pre-flyby image! View of Lutetia at a distance of 80,000 km.


Lutetia imaged just before its closest approach with Rosetta



At a distance of 36 000 km, Rosetta took this image of Lutetia with the planet Saturn in the background.


Lutetia close approach by Rosetta - Animation (click for a bigger version)

Next Rosetta rendezvous, scheduled for 2014, is with comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko. This comet rendezvous is the ultimate goal of Rosetta in the attempt to try to solve some of the enigmas of our Solar System.

by Ernesto Guido

18 comments:

Muhammad Akmal said...

i love astronomy and i like this informative blog...hope you can visit my blog...

-greeting from indonesia-

François Comeau-Lapointe said...

I don't understand why this doesn't have any comment, this is an awesome picture! What kind of software did you use to model it? Anyway, great blog, keep up the great work =)

François Comeau-Lapointe

LaVone said...

Wow this stuff is really cool, keep up the great posts!

carlos miranda (betomelodia) said...

Hello ...
I've always had great interest in astronomy ...
The blog is very interesting and enlightening ...
Congratulations ...

Kisses in your heart ....

Fashion & Style said...

Yeah, sure enough this is a fantastic article about the astronomy, this deserves compliment!

kominitas sukses said...

nice. thanks

Anonymous said...

Amazing...

blessingsgoddess said...

A fascinating blog.

mamanabila said...

with this article, i'm now about asteroid Lutetia pic. thanks and great blogs.

noktour said...

The blog is very interesting and enlightening.

Jonah said...

I'm new to blogging. I like astronomy and would like to subscribe to your blog but I can't seem to figure out ow to do it!

Prettypics123 said...

Congratulations on being a blog of note the other day! Good work! When you have a minute, you're invited to drop by my two blogs.

noo-ddd said...

This is an awesome picture!

je faire said...

Hii
I've always had great interest in astronomy..
very interesting blog..

Ada said...

thanks for the picks!
this is intriguing!

Rae said...

That is really fascinating stuff! The pictures are great!

Team said...

@Jonah

I just added the Followers Gadget to the blog. Just click on the Follow button.

Ciao,
Ernesto

Maddkemal said...

tis is about sky and the environments, you so col dude .. i like it