Astronomy Picture of the Day
    


Stereo Itokawa
<< Yesterday 19.06.2010 Tomorrow >>
Stereo Itokawa
Credit & Copyright: ISAS, JAXA; Stereo Image by Patrick Vantuyne
Explanation: Get out your red/blue glasses and float next to asteroid Itokawa, a diminutive world of the solar system only half a kilometer across. Boulders strewn across its rough surface and the lack of craters indicate that this asteroid is a rubble pile, formed as smaller pieces collected and were kept together by gravity. The stereo view was constructed from images made by the Hayabusa spacecraft when it encountered the asteroid in 2005. After a long journey, the spacecraft re-entered the atmosphere on June 13 over Australia, successfully parachuting a capsule to Earth. Hayabusa's capsule could contain a small sample of material from rubble pile asteroid Itokawa.

Ponder: Can you guess the result to this simple experiment?

January
February
March
April
May
June
July
August
September
October
November
December
 < June 2010  >
Mo Tu We Th Fr Sa Su

123456
78910111213
14151617181920
21222324252627
282930



Authors & editors: Robert Nemiroff (MTU) & Jerry Bonnell (USRA)
NASA Web Site Statements, Warnings, and Disclaimers
NASA Official: Jay Norris. Specific rights apply.
A service of: LHEA at NASA / GSFC
& Michigan Tech. U.

Based on Astronomy Picture Of the Day

Publications with keywords: asteroid
Publications with words: asteroid
See also:
All publications on this topic >>