Study of asteroids-targets of space mission

Asteroid 21 Lutetia, target of the Rosetta space mission, has a long history of ground-based observations by different techniques since 1962 when the first Lutetia’s lightcurve was measured. Analysis of Lutetia’s ground-based observations before the Rosetta fly-by was presented in

Belskaya I.N., Fornasier S., Krugly Yu.N., Shevchenko V.G., Gaftonyuk N.M., Barucci M.A., Fulchignoni1 M., Gil-Hutton R. (2010). Puzzling asteroid 21 Lutetia: our knowledge prior to the Rosetta fly-by. Astron. Astrophys. 515, p. A29-A37. pdf

Heterogeneous surface properties and a large crater in the northern hemisphere found during the fly-by of ESA’s Rosetta spacecraft were successfully predicted from the analysis of the ground-based observations.

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