ESA/Rosetta Encounters the Main Belt Asteroid (21) Lutetia: First Results on Lutetia Cratering History

Details ESA/Rosetta Encounters the Main Belt Asteroid (21) Lutetia: First Results on Lutetia Cratering History ESA/Rosetta Encounters the Main Belt Asteroid (21) Lutetia: First Results on Lutetia Cratering History

Oct 2010

adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-data_query?bibcode=2010dps....42.3901m&link_type=abstract

American Astronomical Society, DPS meeting #42, #39.01; Bulletin of the American Astronomical Society, Vol. 42, p.1032

Astronomy and Astrophysics

Astronomy

Scientific paper

On July 10, 2010 the ESA Rosetta spacecraft flown by the 100-km across main belt asteroid (21) Lutetia. According to present asteroid collisional models, Lutetia could be a primordial body, i.e. that survived intact to eons of fiery collisions within the main belt. Lutetia is the largest asteroid ever visited by a spacecraft so far, therefore it is the best candidate for understanding the formation and evolution of asteroids, which still remain elusive in many respects. These circumstances make of Lutetia flyby a milestone for the whole planetary community. The many instruments on board Rosetta gathered a great deal of information about Lutetia physical properties (e.g. surface composition, geology, shape, density). In this work, we present a preliminary analysis of the surface features detected on Lutetia thanks to the imaging system OSIRIS. The closest approach distance of Rosetta to Lutetia was about 3160 km, corresponding to a best resolution of about 60 m/pixel. Lutetia shows a very complex surface morphology and shape, possibly sculpted by large impacts. Impact craters have been counted down to diameters of about 300 m, while the largest detected crater has a size of about 60 km. We investigate the Lutetia cratering history and give a preliminary interpretation of the observations in terms of the current collisional models.

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