steins_-_the_movie_v3 [AVI video]

Credits: ESA ©2008 MPS for OSIRIS Team MPS/UPM/LAM/IAA/RSSD/INTA/UPM/DASP/IDA - “An animation of the closest approach of Rosetta to asteroid Steins“. AVI format, 3014 kb.

Along with first images, anaglyphs and initial data results from Rosetta’s successful flyby of Asteroid (2867) Šteins, mission team members put together an animation of the flyby.

More Information

• Rosetta
  • Rosetta Blog
  • Press Release: “Steins: A diamond in the sky“

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Hours after its successful flyby of “the jewel of the solar system”, the robotic traveler Rosetta continues to return data from the encounter. From a point of light discovered in 1969 into a world of new vistas, here is Asteroid (2867) Šteins:

Credits: ESA ©2008 MPS for OSIRIS Team MPS/UPM/LAM/IAA/RSSD/INTA/UPM/DASP/IDA - Cutout of “Asteroid Steins seen from a distance of 800 km“

At a press conference to announce preliminary results and to show the first images of Šteins, European Space Agency (ESA) scientists compared the shape of the asteroid to that of a jewel and a diamond. The predicted shape model based on data obtained from Earth-based telescopes held up during the encounter, but the asteroid turned out to be nearly 10% bigger than expected. At its largest diameter Šteins measures 5.9 kilometers,

Credit: ESA TV - “Rosetta spacecraft meets asteroid Steins“

Rosetta, the European Space Agency (ESA) spacecraft on its way to orbit and deploy a lander on a comet, is now approaching Asteroid (2867) Šteins. The flyby will bring the spacecraft within 800 km of Šteins on Friday evening, September 5, 2008. The ESA will provide a webcast about the event beginning on September 06, 2008 from 04:00 until 11:20 GMT on the Rosetta website. Data is expect on Saturday after the flyby has been completed.

Šteins is 4.6 km in diameter and located in the main asteroid belt. Rosetta will collect information about the asteroid as it speeds by on its way to Comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko.

Here is the Šteins flyby timeline provided by ESA on the Rosetta Blog: