TheRosetta probeThe European Space Agency (ESA) has obtained the first images of theasteoride 2867 Steinswith the cameras of the OSIRIS instrument, in whose development the Instituto de Astrofísica de Andalucía of the CSIC has participated. The images show that it has a rare diamond shape with an effective diameter of 5.3 kilometers and a large crater, near the asteroid’s south pole, 2.1 kilometers in diameter. The study is published this week in the journalScience.
Researchers from the international team suggest that it has beensunlightwhichhas “carved” this “diamond”, by what is called the effectYORP, that is, the alteration of the rotation of the asteroid on its own axis caused by radiation from the Sun. As explained by Luisa María Lara, from the CSIC,? everything seems to point to the fact that the thermal effect of the Sun on the asteroid haschanged direction of body rotation, which could cause the slide of material from the south pole of the asteroid to the equator, a phenomenon that would give Steins?
Steins’ study is the first scientific objective of the journey of the Rosetta space probe, which took off aboard an ESA Ariane 5 rocket on February 25, 2004. The mission’s ultimate goal is tocometa Churyumov-Gerasimenko, which draws an elliptical orbit around the Sun. With its encounter, scheduled for 2014, Rosetta will become the first probe to orbit a comet. Likewise, it is planned that a descent module, called Philae, will sit on its surface to analyze it in detail.
