NAVCAM A captures asteroid Steins

Date: 19 Aug 2008
Satellite: Rosetta
Depicts: NAVCAM A observation of Steins on 4 August
Copyright: ESA

Asteroid Steins is the tiny white dot in the centre of the two concentric circles, as seen by Rosetta's Navigation Camera (NAVCAM) A in the morning of 4 August. At the time, the spacecraft was approximately 24 million kms from Steins. This was only the first in a series of steadily better images as Rosetta closed the range.

On this day, the asteroid was still fainter than the nominal detection limit of the camera. The larger surrounding white spots are stars. Almost all other small white spots are artefacts from the camera's CCD sensor (known as pixel dark current), which considerably degrades the quality of the image. The asteroid was found within 3 arcseconds of its predicted position.