Forty-Two of The Biggest Asteroids in The Solar System Revealed in Glorious New Images
by Michelle Starr
October 12, 2021
https://www.sciencealert.com/42-of-the- ... new-images
Introduction:
(Science Alert) If there's one thing our Solar System doesn't have in short supply, it's rocks.
Small rocks, chunky rocks, dry rocks, icy rocks. Rocks that are like other rocks. It's the rocks' system, really – we just happen to live here too. For all their prevalence, though, these rocks aren't easy to see; they're small, and dim, and outshone by bigger, brighter objects.
But we're getting better at it, and now we've gotten the most detailed look yet at some of the biggest rocks in the Solar System that aren't planets. An international team of astronomers has used the European Southern Observatory's Very Large Telescope to image 42 of the largest objects that hang out in the asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter.
"Only three large main belt asteroids, Ceres, Vesta and Lutetia, have been imaged with a high level of detail so far, as they were visited by the space missions Dawn and Rosetta of NASA and the European Space Agency, respectively," said astronomer Pierre Vernazza of the Laboratoire d'Astrophysique de Marseille in France.
"Our ESO observations have provided sharp images for many more targets, 42 in total."
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