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Stories, updates, insights, and original analysis from The Planetary Society.

Steins, a rotating jewel (animation)

Steins, a jewel in the asteroid belt

A notice of some new names for features on asteroid 2867 Steins inspired me to dig up the data set from the September 5, 2008 Rosetta flyby and explore it to see what it contained.

All asteroids and comets visited by spacecraft as of August 2014, in color, albedo linearly scaled

Asteroids and comets to scale, including Hartley 2

Just in time for today's Deep Impact press briefing, which you can watch on NASA TV in a few minutes: I've updated my montage of all the asteroids and comets that have been visited and photographed to include Hartley 2.

All Rosetta NAC images of Steins (animation)

Results from the Rosetta Encounter with Asteroid 2867 Steins

Last week in Science magazine appeared the first peer-reviewed article on the results of Rosetta's September 2008 encounter with the smallish main-belt asteroid Steins. This morning I got a chance to sit down and read the article, and I wrote up a summary.

Rotating Steins

Asteroid 2867 Steins

This description of asteroid 2867 Steins is based upon an article published in the January 8, 2010 issue of Science by H. Uwe Keller and numerous coauthors and on a related press release.