Chinese spacecraft gets a close look at Asteroid Toutatis

[n2doc]

By Deborah Netburn
December 12, 2013, 7:43 p.m.

Space rock, or space rocks? A new study of asteroid 4179 Toutatis suggests the large asteroid that zips past Earth every four years is actually a collection of rocky fragments held together by gravity.

"We may conclude that Toutatis is not a monolith, but most likely a coalescence of shattered fragments," the researchers wrote in a paper in Scientific Reports.

The study, published Thursday, is based on images of the asteroid collected by the Chinese space probe Chang'e-2 (see above).

After completing its primary mission to study the moon in 2011, Chang'e-2 was positioned to take images of Toutatis just after the asteroid made a much-hyped close approach to Earth last December.

more
http://www.latimes.com/science/sciencenow/la-sci-sn-chinese-spacecraft-gets-a-closer-look-at-asteroid-toutatis-photo-20131212,0,7790844.story

[Laelth]

1. Interesting. k&r for exposure. n/t

-Laelth

[Stargazer09]

2. One of the problems

We tend to think that an earth-threatening asteroid can be blown up with enough explosives, thus preventing the thing from destroying our lives. We are learning, however, that asteroids aren't always the solid chunks of rock we expected them to be, and with all of the different possibilities out there, we may not be able to defend ourselves as easily as we thought we could.