Stardust
flew within about 3,300 km of the asteroid as a rehearsal for the spacecraft's
encounter with its primary target, comet Wild 2, in January 2004. The camera's
resolution was sufficient to show that Annefrank is about 8 km in length,
twice the predicted size from Earth-based observations. The surface reflects
about 0.1 to 0.2 % of sunlight, slightly less than anticipated. A few craters
that are hundreds of meters across can be seen. The straight edge in the
right side of the image may be an artifact of processing. |
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