Asteroid Encounter – Here’s Looking at You Kid

Artist’s impression of Rosetta close encounter with asteroid 21 Lutetia (Image: ESA) The Rosetta spacecraft is due to make history tomorrow (10 July at 17:10 BST )* when it will fly past the asteroid 21 Lutetia at a distance of 3162 km. 21 Lutetia, which is about 100 km in diameter, will be the largest…

Non-Identical Twins

Not quite Venus! Somewhere nice in Aussois, France (image Maurienne-tourisme) We may have to wait a bit before we have samples from Venus (see last entry), but that doesn’t stop us finding out a lot more about our twin planet, thanks to ESA’s Venus Express probe. Twin planet! Well I guess that’s pushing it a…

Hayabusa – Particles Found!

Picture of opened Hayabusa sample canister showing dust particles (image JAXA) According to a BBC report earlier today, pictures have now been released by JAXA (Japanese Space Agency) showing particles collected by the Hayabusa spacecraft. The image above shows the opened canister, with what appear to be quite large particles. The second image below shows…

Hayabusa – A 2010 Space Odyssey

The Hayabusa return capsule is located in the Australian desert. (image courtesy of JAXA) The Japanese space probe Hayabusa made it back to Earth earlier this month (13th June 2010), after an epic flight lasting over seven years. As intended, the main probe burnt up on re-entry producing a spectacular fireball, while a small capsule…