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The cratering history of asteroid (2867) Steins

Lamy, P.; Keller, H. U.; Mottola, S. +8 more

The cratering history of main belt asteroid (2867) Steins has been investigated using OSIRIS imagery acquired during the Rosetta flyby that took place on the 5th of September 2008. For this purpose, we applied current models describing the formation and evolution of main belt asteroids, that provide the rate and velocity distributions of impactors…

Millimeter and submillimeter measurements of asteroid (2867) Steins during the Rosetta fly-by

Davidsson, B.; Hartogh, P.; Lellouch, E. +18 more

The European Space Agency Rosetta Spacecraft passed within 803 km of the main belt asteroid (2867) Steins on 5 September 2008. The Rosetta Spacecraft carries a number of scientific instruments including a millimeter and submillimeter radiometer and spectrometer. The instrument, named MIRO (Microwave Instrument for the Rosetta Orbiter), consists of…

Magnetic field investigations during ROSETTA's 2867 Šteins flyby

Richter, I.; Glassmeier, K. H.; Carr, C. M. +3 more

During the 2867 Šteins flyby of the ROSETTA spacecraft on September 5, 2008 magnetic field measurements have been made with both the RPC orbiter magnetometer and the ROMAP lander magnetometer. These combined magnetic field measurements allow a detailed examination of any magnetic signatures caused either directly by the asteroid or indirectly by Š…

Search for Steins’ surface inhomogeneities from OSIRIS Rosetta images

Jorda, L.; Sierks, H.; Barbieri, C. +10 more

We investigate the possible presence of heterogeneous surface features on asteroid (2867) Steins, using the G-mode multivariate statistical method ( Coradini et al., 1977) applied to Rosetta/OSIRIS images. We analyze both NAC and WAC images obtained near around the closest approach that occurred on September 5th, 2008, through different filters ce…

The flyby of Rosetta at asteroid Šteins - mission and science operations

Accomazzo, Andrea; Lodiot, Sylvain; Küppers, Michael +2 more

The international Rosetta mission, a cornerstone mission of the european space agency scientific Programme, was launched on 2nd March 2004 on its 10 years journey towards a rendezvous with comet Churyumov-Gerasimenko ( Gardini et al., 1999). During its interplanetary flight towards its target Rosetta crosses the asteroid belt twice with the opport…

The far-ultraviolet albedo of Šteins measured with Rosetta-ALICE

Parker, Joel Wm.; Bertaux, Jean-Loup; Weaver, Harold A. +9 more

During Rosetta's flyby of the asteroid (2867) Šteins in 2008, we used the ALICE instrument to measure the first far-ultraviolet (FUV) reflectivity spectrum of an asteroid (850-2000 Å). It is very dark in the FUV, ∼4%, compared to its very high reflectivity (40%) at optical wavelengths. The FUV albedo does not exhibit a systematic color trend acros…

The light curve of asteroid 2867 Steins measured by VIRTIS-M during the Rosetta fly-by

Mottola, S.; Barucci, M. A.; Erard, S. +11 more

On 5 September 2008, the Rosetta spacecraft encountered the asteroid 2867 Steins on its way to the comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko. This was the first of two planned asteroid fly-bys performed by the probe, the second fly-by being with the much larger asteroid 21 Lutetia in July 2010. The VIRTIS imaging spectrometer (IFOV 0.250 mrad, overall spect…

Evidence for surface variegation in Rosetta OSIRIS images of asteroid 2867 Šteins

Sierks, H.; Keller, H. U.; Hviid, S. F. +4 more

The OSIRIS camera onboard Rosetta successfully acquired images of asteroid 2867 Steins through a variety of color filters during the flyby on 5 September 2008. The best images of this 5 km diameter asteroid have a resolution of 78 m per pixel. We process the images by deconvolving with the point spread function and enlarging through the Mitchell-N…

The Rosetta mission and its fly-by at asteroid 2867 Steins

Schulz, R.