Europe’s Rosetta space probe just flew past the Steins asteroid earlier today, and here’s an artist’s impression of the event. The plucky little probe flew into an asteroid belt and did a close flyby of Steins, which is a rare E-type asteroid. The data from the flyby will give us way more insights into the evolution of our solar system by allowing scientists to examine matter dating from different eras. Click through for another asteroid flyby image, plus an impression of Rosetta reaching its final destination in 2014: the comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko. (And then Rosetta will follow the comet around the sun.)
