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Comet-Chasing Spacecraft Encounters Rare Asteroid

Posted by Soulskill on from the needle-in-a-hay dept.

Riding with Robots writes "Yesterday the robotic spacecraft Rosetta, on its way to a distant encounter with Comet Churyumov-Gerasimenko, flew by the asteroid 'Steins,' which is roughly 4.6 kilometers wide. Steins is one of the relatively rare E-type asteroids. The mission team live-blogged throughout the day, and a press conference with the first pictures will be available soon." Rosetta's flyby took it to within 800 kilometers of Steins while both objects were roughly 360 million kilometers from Earth. According to Rosetta's fact sheet (PDF), the craft will next swing by Earth in 2009 and take a look at another asteroid in 2010 on its way to the rendezvous with the comet in 2014.

2 of 40 comments (clear)

  1. Relatively rare? by bigtallmofo · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Steins is one of the relatively rare E-type asteroids.

    The summary says they're rare, but the Wikipedia article indirectly linked says they form a majority of the asteroids "inward of the main belt". I'm very confused!

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/E-type_asteroid

    --
    I'm a big tall mofo.
    1. Re:Relatively rare? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Interesting

      The wiki link for E-type asteroids in the starting comment is clearer.

      E-type (44 Nysa, 55 Pandora) differ from M-type mostly by high albedo

      M-types are metallic...

      So does that mean the scientist got distracted by a bright and shiny object?