Rosetta Visits Lutetia

Rosetta Visits Lutetia



And they both look mighty fine! :-)



Credits: ESA, image by C.Carreau

Funny Asteroids

Funny Peanuts?





Nope. Asteroids, dude!

Asteroids

Watch Your Heads Tonight








Asteroid 2008 TC3



Credit: Richard Kowalski and Ed Beshore, Catalina Sky Survey

Movie showing the discovery images of 2008 TC3. Images taken at around 06:30 UTC on October 6, 2008. The asteroid was at 19th magnitude and moving at 2.5 degrees per day.

Steins

Celestial Diamond



Credits: ESA ©2008 MPS for OSIRIS Team MPS/UPM/LAM/IAA/RSSD/INTA/UPM/DASP/IDA




Rosetta webcast







About asteroids: Asteroids provide us with information about the history of our solar system and planet formation. Asteroids can be considered planetary embryos that reveals about early planetary history. You could say they are prototypes containing "planetary DNA"s.

When Jupiter was formed it was so big that it stopped the embryos in the asteroid belt from developing further. Either they collided and formed smaller asteroids or the mass gain was simply not sufficient. So in the asteroid belt there are lots and lots of asteroids of different asteroid families - 14 different classes to be precise has been defined.

The Steins asteroid is the first asteroid ESA encounter but NASA and other space agencies have had several asteroid missions.

Steins belong to a family of asteroids consisting of a rare type of silicates. It was formed as a piece of another greater asteroid. Earth based studies of Steins have given us an idea about its shape, albedo, collision history, mass and material composition.

On board of Rosetta there are 15 different instruments that will provide us with unprecedented information about asteroids.


About Rosetta navigation: The navigation of the Rosetta spacecraft was very demanding. They wanted Rosetta to fly-by with a distance of 800 km . That was of course very difficult when the uncertainty of the asteroid's orbit was in the order of a few 100 km! On top of it all, the spacecraft is traveling real fast and experience an enormous angular momentum that ultimately can destroy the spacecraft. I think the navigation story of Rosetta is the most thrilling one. As you can tell from the numbers above they simply had to improve the accuracy of the Stein's orbit. And so they did by recalcuation based on optical navigation tools beginning 4 August ending just in time for the fly-by. Excellent! And this is celest mechanics and planetary geodesy at it's best!

At 20:23:30 CEST Rosetta reached its closest position relative to Steins - just as planned.


Preliminary results: Shape and size: With it's 5. 9 x 4 km it is 10% larger than estimated and it has the shape of a diamond. Albedo: Since it is bigger the reflectivity was corrected to 3.5 +-0.5 and so far a grey color is observed. Craters: Steins has one very large crater 2 km diameter, a second large crater and a chain of 7 craters. In sum 23 larger than 200 m craters were counted revealing a complex collision history.

The Narrow Angle Camera (NAC) provides data to determine the topography in 3D, Steins composites, crater counting and its spin axis orientation.

Rosetta

Rosetta Looks At Steins





Credit: ESA

Access live streaming of the Rosetta Steins fly-by press conference from the European Space Operations Centre (ESOC), Darmstadt, Germany, beginning at 11:55 CEST on 6 September 2008.

Rosetta

Rosetta Blog




Rosetta by ESA








Rosetta soon to almost hit Steins...another space thriller! :-)

Asteroids

Asteroids: Solar Spin



Credit: Steve Ostro/NASA/JPL

In 2006, the Arecibo Observatory bounced radio waves off of the flying-saucer-shaped asteroid 1999 KW4 (top) and its moon (bottom), creating the best 'pictures' of an asteroid pair ever made.




Illustration: Kevin Walsh/Derek Charles Richardson/UMD

Pairs of asteroids can be created from a single parent body that spins so fast due to solar energy that it breaks apart. In new computer simulations, the parent body was modelled as a rubble pile. Loose material near its poles rolled to its equator, then floated off to become a moon.

And That Is How It Is Done!

Asteroids

Cosmic Collision



Stellare Is on Asteroids.

Rosetta

Rosetta and Her Asteroids



Credit: ESA/ C. Carreau


Awake After Hibernation














Here's another hibernator.

Asteroids

Super Spinning Asteroid




Credit: Richard Miles

Asteroid 2008HJ moves swiftly across the middle of this view.