Spectacular asteroid flyby

European Space Agency

On the way to its mission to land on a comet, the Rosetta space probe recently raced past the asteroid Lutetia. As it flew by from a distance as close as 3162 km, the probe's onboard instruments snapped photos and gathered data on the large, rocky, heavily cratered object.

Currently, there is some confusion about whether the asteroid is a carbon-based leftover from the solar system's formation or if it is a rarer metallic asteroid. The images from the flyby will be analyzed to determine Lutetia's composition.