The Steins asteroid was slightly larger than first believed, at 3.1 miles in diameter, rather than 3 miles, European space officials say. (ESA / AP)From San Francisco Chronicle:
(09-07) 04:00 PDT Darmstadt, Germany -- The European deep space probe Rosetta successfully completed a flyby of an asteroid millions of miles from Earth, but its high resolution camera stopped shortly before the closest pass, space officials said Saturday.
Rosetta caught up with the Steins asteroid, also known as Asteroid 2867, just after 8:45 p.m. Friday in the asteroid belt between the orbits of Mars and Jupiter. The probe came within 500 miles of the asteroid - which turned out to be slightly larger than scientists expected.
Officials at the European Space Agency were not sure exactly what caused the camera to balk.
"The software switched off automatically," said Gerhard Schwehm, the ESA mission manager and head of solar systems science operations. "The camera has some software limits, and we'll analyze why this happened later."
Another wide angle camera was able to take pictures and send them to the space center, Schwehm said.
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