Asteroid Lutetia has thick blanket of debris


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Lutetia, the giant asteroid visited by Europe's Rosetta probe in July, is covered in a thick blanket of dusty debris at least 600m (2,000ft) deep.

Aeons of impacts have pulverised the space rock to produce a shattered surface that in terms of texture is much like Earth's Moon, scientists say.

The finding is one of the first to emerge from the wealth of data gathered by Rosetta during its close flyby.

Rosetta's encounter with the asteroid occurred some 454 million km (282 million miles) from Earth, beyond the orbit of Mars.

Multi-wavelength cameras and spectrometers, magnetic field and plasma experiments, dust instruments, a radio science experiment - all were tasked with gathering as much information as possible as the spacecraft whizzed by at the relative speed of 15km/s (9 miles/s) and a minimum distance of 3,162km (1,964 miles).

The data indicates Lutetia has a mass of about 1,700 trillion tonnes.

One calculation for the volume is 650 trillion cubic metres, giving a density of some 3.4 grams per cubic centimetre - not dissimilar to that of Earth (3.34g per cu cm).

What is in little doubt from July's spectacular pictures is the beating Lutetia has taken. Impact after impact from other space rocks has ground up the surface to leave a deep regolith, or "soil".

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