Asteroid Lutetia flyby

I was thinking to myself a few days ago that we're kind of in a lull in terms of robotic planetary exploration. MESSENGER is on the outswing of its last leg before coming back to Mercury and going into orbit. Reliable Cassini is still flying by the Saturn moons and taking amazing pictures, but since the equinox it's been rather quiet, discovery-wise. New Horizons is on the LONG cruise phase to Pluto. Lots of Mars pictures coming back, while Opportunity keeps crossing the dunes and everybody hopes Spirit eventually wakes up. Dawn is still cruising, with Vesta arrival a little more than a year away. EPOXI (the former Deep Impact mothership) will do a comet flyby on November 4, something to look forward to. Hayabusa returned spectacularly, but odds are against finding any asteroid dust, unfortunately.

And there was just a conference about the Venus Express first results.


But... in terms of public interest, I thought there wasn't much going on. But there was... I forgot, until reminded today, that the Rosetta mission flew past Asteroid Lutetia on the weekend.

























Now, the asteroids are starting to look somewhat similar -- I suppose airless rocky bodies in space all will resemble each other quite a bit (notice I did not say "hairless rock-hard bodies" in order to attract search engine hits). This one is a cratered rocky body as well... but thinking about the fact that it is unlikely ever to be viewed this close again within the span of foreseeable human history, that makes such a flyby historical and unique. And they did take one picture (see below) that put it in context quite well.