New observations indicate that the asteroid Lutetia is a leftover fragment of the same original material that formed the Earth, Venus and Mercury. Astronomers have combined data from ESA’s Rosetta spacecraft, ESO’s New Technology Telescope, and NASA telescopes. They found that the properties of the asteroid closely match those of a rare kind of meteorites found on Earth and thought to have formed in the inner parts of the Solar System. Lutetia must, at some point, have moved out to its current location in the main asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter.
The release, images and videos are available on:
http://www.eso.org/public/news/eso1144/
Translations are available in: Czech, Danish, Dutch, Finnish, French, German, Icelandic, Italian, Norwegian, Polish, Portuguese/Brazil, Portuguese/Portugal, Russian, Spanish, Swedish, Turkish, Ukrainian
Space Scoop - the children's version of this release is available at: http://www.eso.org/public/news/eso1144/kids/
Kind regards,
The ESO Education and Public Outreach Department
11 November 2011
|
7 November 2011: Colliding and exploding stars, which we witness as supernovae and gamma-ray bursts, generate the most powerful and brightest surges of energy in the Universe. During the very short time needed ...
|
| Read more |
