A new set of observations yielded this animated view of asteroid (511) Davida,
a good-sized space rock that's about 200 miles (320 kilometers) wide.
The observations were made with 400-inch (10-meter) Keck II telescope in Hawaii
last December, and the animation was released last week.
Davida orbits the Sun in the main asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter. The
pictures are among the most detailed ground-based observations ever made of
an object in the asteroid belt.
"Asteroid Davida was discovered 100 years ago, but this is the first time anyone
has been able to see this level of detail on this object," said Al Conrad, a
scientist at the W.M. Keck Observatory.
Keck uses a system of adaptive optics to correct for blurring caused by Earth's
ever-unstable atmosphere.
Davida's north pole faces the camera, so only the northern hemisphere of the
rock is visible. At least two flat "facets" can be seen on its surface. Dark
features have not been evaluated -- scientists will try to figure out if they
are impact craters, some other sort of surface markings, or artifacts of image
processing. [Similar
animation of asteroid 1998 WT24]
