Lutetia in color

Filed under pretty pictures, global views, amateur image processing, asteroids, asteroid 21 Lutetia, Rosetta and Philae

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This high-resolution, full-globe, color view of the largest asteroid yet visited by a spacecraft is composed from three images taken by Rosetta as it flew past Lutetia on July 10, 2010.

ESA 2010 MPS for OSIRIS Team MPS / UPD / LAM / IAA / RSSD / INTA / UPM / DASP / IDA / color composite by Ted Stryk

Most of the mosaic is from a shot captured just two minutes before closest approach, with a small gap near the terminator (right side) filled in using an image captured at 4 minutes 40 seconds before closest approach. The color is from a much more distant shot. Like most solar system surfaces that have been exposed to space weathering for a long time, Lutetia is reddish in color.

Copyright holder: Ted Stryk

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.
Contact us to request publication permission from the copyright holder. Original image data dated on or about July 10, 2010