Rocks dislodged in a landslide on Lutetia. Click for larger. Credits: ESA 2011 MPS for OSIRIS Team MPS/UPD/LAM/IAA/RSSD/INTA/UPM/DASP/IDA

Cool stuff!!

From the ESA site:

ESA’s Rosetta spacecraft has revealed asteroid Lutetia to be a primitive body, left over as the planets were forming in our Solar System. Results from Rosetta’s fleeting flyby also suggest that this mini-world tried to grow a metal heart.

Rosetta flew past Lutetia on 10 July 2010 at a speed of 54 000 km/hr and a closest distance of 3170 km. At the time, the 130 km-long asteroid was the largest encountered by a spacecraft. Since then, scientists have been analysing the data taken during the brief encounter.

Now for the good stuff and more amazing images . . .

The twisted ring around the galactic center. Larger versions linked below. Images: ESA/NASA/JPL-Caltech

If you are having trouble visualizing the ring click the image.  You can get larger versions of the images at the link below and I recommend you do so, they are really good.

From the ESA Herschel Space Observatory site (via Caltech).

New observations from the Herschel Space Observatory show a bizarre, twisted ring of dense gas at the center of our Milky Way galaxy. Only a few portions of the ring, which stretches across more than 600 light-years, were known before. Herschel’s view reveals the entire ring for the first time, and a strange kink that has astronomers scratching their heads.
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An enlarged image of comet Churyumov-Gerasimenko from the Rosetta spacecraft. More images linked below. Credits: NASA/JPL-Caltech/UCLA/MPS/DLR/IDA)

The European Space Agency has a spacecraft enroute to meet a comet. The name of the comet is Churyumov-Gerasimenko (say that three times fast). Rosetta was launched in 2004 and won’t actually get to the comet in 2014.  ESA is getting ready to put the spacecraft in a hibernation for the last three years of the journey.

The picture above was a test of the on board system called OSIRIS, (short for Optical, Spectroscopic and Infrared Remote Imaging System) and at a distance of over 101 million miles (163 million km) taking a picture of an object that is only 2.5 miles (4 km) in diameter I’d say it works pretty well.

Check out the press release and more images.

Testing the new Soyuz launch site in French Guiana. Click for larger. Credit: ESA - S. Corvaja, 2011

The Soyuz spacecraft will soon be launching from Europe’s Spaceport in French Guiana.

The facilities are almost complete and final testing began on April 29, 2011 with a simulated launch.  The simulation is designed to ensure the facilities work as expected and allow teams to train under realistic conditions.

The image shows the vehicle as it was transferred from the preparation building to the launch area and moved to the vertical position.  A mobile gantry was then rolled out to the pad and the upper stage was hoisted atop the launcher.

The first launch will be in the third quarter of 2011.

Read more about it and see lots more images here.

Polar Vortex on Venus as seen by the ESA Venus Express. Image: ESA

If you can’t see the image above give it a second or two (a lot more if you are on dial up) you are looking at a new animation obtained by ESA’s Venus Express of the polar vortex on Venus.

The vortex is pretty dynamic and at times it is has two centers like it is a twin vortex, this animation shows it as a single as you can see. The vortex is about 3000 km (1,864 miles) in diameter and is apparently a permanent feature on the planet.

You can see more images at the ESA website.

Venus is a pretty interesting planet beyond being the hottest planet in the solar system at 891^o F (477^oC) , owing to the runaway greenhouse effect and having clouds of sulfuric acid.

It is known as Earth’s twin because it is just a wee bit smaller, just 94 percent the radius and 81 percent the mass of our Earth.

Venus has the distinction of having the most circular orbit of any planet in the solar system and probably the weirdest thing about it is the axial tilt.  The Earth has about a 23 degree tilt right?  Venus has a tilt of 177 degrees!  Yes, it’s upside down.  Makes one wonder how that happened eh?  Venus has a retrograde (east-to-west) rotation that takes 243 days!