Gaia space telescope rocks the science of asteroids

Gaia space telescope rocks the science of asteroids
Asteroid (21) Lutetia’s photocenter (brown bullet) and center of mass (blue bullet) as projected in the direction of Gaia for three viewing geometries. The vertical axis (green bars) is in the direction of the z-axis of the equatorial reference frame (north is upwards) and the illumination by the Sun is in the direction of the red bar. The angle between Gaia and the Sun (the so-called phase angle) is, from the left to the right, 16.7, 24.2 and 20.9 degrees and the photocenter-barycenter distance is 7.42, 5.96 and 10.91 km, respectively. CREDIT: Reference and image credit: Tanga, P., Muinonen, K., Penttilä, A., et al., 2022, Astronomy & Astrophysics, in press.
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