Asteroid Lutetia Revealed by Rosetta

Given that it's the era when we are free to redesignate the terminology for solar system bodies (planet, dwarf planet, etc), I think it's time to rename the Asteroid Belt to something more accurately descriptive:

* The Potato Belt *

(or, for you OE/Dan Quayle fans, the Potatoe Belt)

Well done, Rosetta Team!

Oh! It's a rock!!!

Now, that's an *interesting* image.

Is it just me, or is there a Phobos-like texture to the surface - or are we seeing Mt Hadley shadow artefacts?

Bob Shaw

Superb. Well done, Rosetta team.
I am eagerly awaiting the data from the infrared spectrometer!

The VIRTIS data will be fascinating. 21 Lutetia is both potentially high in resources, and an important science target for early solar system science. The similarity in looks to Phobos is quite intriguing.

OK, job well done. Very complex and expensive multi-year robotic mission does what it was designed for.

And now go figure how exiting human missions to asteroids will be to general public?!

My opinion can be summarized in one word, and it's not "intriguing".

Yaaawn!

Long travel time, lack of attractive scenery or diversity, visiting a small celestial body, nothing a person can associate with familiar Earth-like sights (no potato pun indented)... This human mission would be 95% introverted, just focusing on operating the spacecraft, internal crew dynamics, living in zero-g environment, etc. Boring at best, or a bad soap opera set in space at worst.

Just for the record - I wish it can be different but I fail to see how.

@ GREverett,

Oddly enough, that is what my mother said when I showed her the image. I reminded her that it is a rock the size of the Greater London area several tens of millions of miles away.

@ warp,

IIRC, both 21 Lutetia and Phobos are type-C asteroids, therefore similarities should be expected. What will be interesting is the differences (if any) between the two objects. We are now in the position where our robotic proxies have visited enough asteroids for us to start developing a data-supported broad baseline as to what to expect with various different classes in different parts of the solar system.

Exploration marches on, it seems.

Well put. Also, heaps of congratulations to the ESA team that pulled off this marvelous accomplishment.

But you know, aside from the travel time, what you're looking at here is pretty much what your looking at on the Moon, and not a whole lot different than what you'd be seeing on Mars, with regard to "attractive scenery and diversity".

It's a little more complicated than that for both Phobos and 21 Lutetia. They both have C-type features, but many anomalies that imply they've both not that simple. So 21 Lutetia could help inform us on Phobos, and help us understand it's history.

@someusername it's a lot less boring than you think! Remember how enormous this object happens to be. It has more surface area than many US states. Those features represent hills, grooves, and depressions on the multi-km scale, in all three dimensions. It would be totally amazing to see it from the surface, on a human mission. However, the science potentially contained in it is possibly game-changing in many ways. If connections can be drawn between a main belt object like this and other objects we may access soon via human missions (say Phobos and Deimos, or NEOs that show similarities), we can make major discoveries about the past development of our solar system, and other solar systems and stars nearby (because C-types are formed from materials from nearby systems). Indeed, these objects are some of the few that can give us that kind of detail, due to the amount of reprocessing in planets and large moons like our own. Plus, obviously, we can learn about a lot of resources available for us for large scale solar system exploration and utilization, due to the C-type/M-type overlap we seemingly have in 21 Lutetia.

To quote Dr. Smith, this is a banner day in science!

"Those features represent hills, grooves, and depressions on the multi-km scale, in all three dimensions. It would be totally amazing to see it from the surface, on a human mission."

Uh huh. Hills, grooves, and depressions. Yes, I guess it would be amazing to see hills, grooves, and depressions on a human mission. But the cost of such a mission hardly justifies such amazement. The science potentially contained here may well be game changing, but the connection between such game changing science and a human mission is somewhat flimsy.

As I said, this is a marvelous accomplishment, and such visits will teach us a lot. But let's resist the temptation to confuse the issue with human space flight.

The truly massive resources available at both M-types and C-types will justify going, by orders of magnitude compared to the cost of a visit. The complexity of rapidly analyzing less differentiated bodies such at Lutetia will justify sending humans. If there's ever going to be an economic sphere off Earth, or strong reasons to send humans to do full-scale exploration, it will include 21 Lutetia in the Belt, and, closer to home, and sooner, Phobos, Deimos, and NEOs. Things will get even more exciting when we see Vesta next year, and Ceres in 2015. These objects will give us a long-term destination, and inform us on what to look our for when it comes to shorter-term Phobos, Deimos, and NEO exploration.