Comet-Chasing Spacecraft Encounters Rare Asteroid 40
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.
Relatively rare? (Score:5, Interesting)
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 [wikipedia.org]
Re:Relatively rare? (Score:5, Insightful)
Not that I know anything about them, but the asteroids inward of the main belt seem to be a minority, compared to all the other asteroids in the main belt and beyond it. A majority of that subset can still be a relative minority.
Insert voter population analogy here.
Re:Relatively rare? (Score:5, Funny)
Yo momma's a numerical minority, but a relative supermajority by volume.
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A numerical minority?
Look, my momma's so fat that her chins alone can win her the presidential election.
That, my friend, is a majority, however you look at it.
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Hey, I've met your momma. She was at the beach last summer selling shade until she sneezed and the cops thought there was a riot and tried to break it up.
I remember it like it was yesterday, she was wearing a pair of yellow and black checkered pants and when she bent over to get her ID from her purse, they split down the center and before anyone knew it, two guys got in thinking it was a yellow cab. (and no, that was a shot at yellow cab, not your momma)
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The wiki link for E-type [wikipedia.org] 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?
E-type? (Score:5, Funny)
From the linked Wikipedia entry:
# X-group
* M-type (16 Psyche) metallic objects, the third most populous group.
* E-type (44 Nysa, 55 Pandora) differ from M-type mostly by high albedo
* P-type (259 Aletheia, 190 Ismene; CP: 324 Bamberga) differ from M-type mostly by low albedo
So, the probe has encountered a shiny metal asteroid. Has anyone informed Bender?
Re:E-type? (Score:5, Funny)
So, the probe has encountered a shiny metal asteroid. Has anyone informed Bender?
Fron Wikipedia:
M-type asteroids are asteroids of unknown composition
E-type (44 Nysa, 55 Pandora) differ from M-type mostly by high albedo (0.3 or better)
"Bite my moderatley-reflective mystery-material ass-teroid"?
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Also from Wikipedia: [wikipedia.org]
E-type asteroids are asteroids thought to have enstatite [wikipedia.org] achondrite surfaces.
Might be where they get the "metal" part from... ;)
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I think the word is "libido" and clearly if this type of asteroid were characterized by "high" libido it wouldn't be so rare!
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Some Nice pictures (Score:5, Informative)
Here [esa.int] are the first results. The asteroid has a nice crater chain [esa.int] on it and looks roughly like a cut diamond.
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Never tell me the odds.
Pick a number between one and ten (Score:1)
Pick a number between one and ten
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You didn't say it had to be an integer.
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wrong!
Want to pick another?
*grin*
Re:Some Nice pictures (Score:5, Informative)
A lot of asteroids are fairly loosely built, more like heaps of rubble than large boulders. So: let such an asteroid have a close encounter with a planet on its travels, let us say Jupiter. Let it pass close to the planet, and be torn apart by tidal forces, and then escape on the other side. It's now a strung-out row of smaller bodies - remember Shoemaker-Levy 9? Then passing through the main asteroid belt, let it collide with a more solid asteroid. Result: a chain of impact craters.
You see similar things on larger bodies - there are impact chains on the Moon, for instance - but these are attributed to debris ejected from a larger impact falling back to the surface further along from the impact site. On an asteroid I doubt gravity would pull anything back, so we'd need a third party to have arranged for a series of impacts instead.
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remember Shoemaker-Levy 9?
REMEMBER Shoemaker-Levy 9 ? Dude, get a life! Geez.
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And text [esa.int] to go with the images.
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By the way, the asteroid is 2867 Steins. (The numbers are generally included with the name.)
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Forget the E-Type... (Score:2)
...Call me when the spacecraft encounters an XKR Coupe.
E-Type?! (Score:4, Funny)
So it's prone to rust, hates humidity and corners like a cat on velcro?
brrrm!
That's no asteroid... (Score:1, Funny)
Or maybe it is...
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obscure probes like this, why can't it spend more money on the shuttle?
The website URL might give you a hint :).
I may be wrong, but I'm pretty sure that this probe was funded by ESA, without any NASA money.