Close Fly-By Offers High-Resolution Asteroid Images

Authors:

PSI Staff

Category: Cover Story

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PSI Research Scientist Jian-Yang Li was part of a research team that secured high-resolution images of near-Earth asteroid 4197 Toutatis during a close fly-by.
The images were taken by China’s Chang’e-2 spacecraft, which passed within about 770 meters of the asteroid and allowed images to be taken with resolution of better than 3 meters.
“This is the smallest flyby distance ever conducted by any spacecraft to a solar system object,” Li said. “The images returned are of high quality that reveals a wealth of geologic features of the asteroid, advanced our understanding about the origin and evolution of this asteroid.”
Li is co-author on a Scientific Reports paper titled “The Ginger-shaped Asteroid 4179 Toutatis: New Observations from a Successful Flyby of Chang’e-2.”
Li participated in the definition of the scientific objectives and technical requirements for the flyby mission.  After the flyby, he discussed the research and data analysis plan with the research team in China based on the characteristics of the available imaging data. During the development of the paper, he provided information and helped revise the paper.
Li is the only scientist from a U.S. research institution on the project. Li’s contribution to this work is not supported by any NASA funds.