Monday, July 12, 2010

A Very Old Rock

A recent photo taken from 1800 miles away of an asteroid that’s 4.5 billion years old and about 80 miles across.

ESA’s Rosetta mission has returned the first close-up images of the asteroid showing it is most probably a primitive survivor from the violent birth of the Solar System.
The images show that Lutetia is heavily cratered, having suffered many impacts during its 4.5 billion years of existence. As Rosetta drew close, a giant bowl-shaped depression stretching across much of the asteroid rotated into view. The images confirm that Lutetia is an elongated body, with its longest side around 130km.” 

1 comment:

wed wing won said...

i think i see a good route to climb up kind of through the shadow on the right