Asteroid
A heavily cratered metallic asteroid visited by the Rosetta spacecraft on its way to comet 67P.
| Type | Asteroid |
|---|---|
| Distance from the Sun | 2.43 AU |
| Diameter | 98 km |
| Mass | 1.70 × 10¹⁸ kg |
| Temperature | -103°C |
| Orbital period | 1,390 days |
| Rotation period | 8.168 hours |
| Apparent magnitude | 9.3 |
| Redshift | 0 |
| Discovered | 1852 |
Asteroids are rocky leftovers from the solar system's formation, most of them confined to the belt between Mars and Jupiter where Jupiter's gravity kept them from ever assembling into a planet.
At 98 km across, 21 Lutetia is 0.8 percent of the diameter of Earth.
Its mass is less than a thousandth of the mass of Earth.
It keeps an average distance of 2.43 AU from the Sun, so sunlight takes 20 minutes to reach it.
A single orbit takes 3.8 years.
An average temperature of 170 K works out at -103 degrees Celsius, colder than the 15 degrees Earth averages.
It has been on record since 1852.
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