NASA’s New
Horizons probe bound for Pluto has tested its camera eyes on an asteroid millions
of miles from Earth.
The
Pluto-bound spacecraft caught two images of the asteroid JF56 this month as it
passed by the space rock.
In the
bottom image, New Horizons was about 2.1 million miles (3.4 million kilometers)
from the asteroid when it trained its Multispectral
Visible Imaging Camera lens on the object. At top, the space rock appears
brighter since New Horizons closed to within 833,000 miles (1.3 million
kilometers).
New Horizons made its closest pass of asteroid JF56 on June 13, closing to about 63,379 miles (102,000 kilometers). The space rock itself is only about 1.5 miles (2.5 kilometers) wide.
These test
images gave New Horizons, which is barreling
through the Solar System at 36,250 miles per hour (58,338 kilometers per hour),
an opportunity to practice tracking rapidly moving objects. The spacecraft is
headed for a swing past Jupiter before making its Pluto flyby in July 2015.
-- SPACE.com Staff
Credit: NASA/JHUAPL/SwRI.
Return each weekday for a new SPACE.com Image of the Day.
| 
