Comet-Chasing Rosetta Spacecraft Gets an Up-Close Look at Asteroid Lutetia [Slide Show]
The Rosetta spacecraft got a good look at the large, main-belt asteroid during a July flyby
![Comet-Chasing Rosetta Spacecraft Gets an Up-Close Look at Asteroid Lutetia [Slide Show]](https://static.scientificamerican.com/sciam/cache/file/23F9B8BF-07A7-48E4-ACC8D2AE589DB02F.jpg?w=590&h=393)
Comet-Chasing Rosetta Spacecraft Gets an Up-Close Look at Asteroid Lutetia [Slide Show]
- LAND HO: When Rosetta finally arrives at Comet Churyumov–Gerasimenko in 2014, it will not just buzz past as it did the asteroids Steins and Lutetia during its interplanetary journey. The plan is to place Rosetta into orbit around the comet for more than a year for an in-depth examination. The spacecraft is even set to deploy a harpoon-anchored lander called Philae, pictured here in an artist's conception, to touch down on the comet's four-kilometer-wide nucleus and measure its composition. ESA, image by AOES Medialab
- GONE FOR GOOD: As Rosetta drew away from Lutetia, the spacecraft took the photograph above, showing part of the asteroid's shadowed side. Having now completed four planetary flybys of Earth and Mars and two asteroid visits, Rosetta will now cruise for years across the solar system to meet up with Comet Churyumov–Gerasimenko, out near the orbit of Jupiter, in 2014. ESA 2010 MPS for OSIRIS Team MPS/UPD/LAM/IAA/RSSD/INTA/UPM/DASP/IDA
- ROCK GARDEN: A zoomed-in look at Lutetia's illuminated face reveals a crater dotted with boulders. Some of the crater slopes appear to have been covered by landslides, indicating a thick layer of loose material, or regolith, on the asteroid. "There have been some areas identified where the craters are almost completely or completely covered by regolith," Rita Schulz of the European Space Agency said October 4 at the annual meeting of the American Astronomical Society's Division for Planetary Sciences. She added that the asteroid's moonlike regolith appears to be 600 meters deep in Lutetia's younger (more recently resurfaced) areas. ESA 2010 MPS for OSIRIS Team MPS/UPD/LAM/IAA/RSSD/INTA/UPM/DASP/IDA
- READY FOR HER CLOSE-UP: The European Space Agency's Rosetta spacecraft flew past the main-belt asteroid, Lutetia, on July 10, drawing to within 3,160 kilometers of the roughly 130-kilometer-long body. (Lutetia's diameter is about 5 percent that of Pluto.) Rosetta could not get much closer due, in part, to safety concerns; such a large asteroid might have gravitationally bound debris nearby. With Rosetta's visit, Lutetia became the largest asteroid visited by a spacecraft to date. ESA 2010 MPS for OSIRIS Team MPS/UPD/LAM/IAA/RSSD/INTA/UPM/DASP/IDA
