June 19, 2010
The same gravity that holds galaxies together and keeps planets in their orbits also held you to the Earth on the day you were born.
Stereo Itokawa
Birthday · June 19, 2010
A little universe, just for you
Your date.
Ready to give.
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APOD published June 19, 2010. Full image credits are on the original APOD entry below. A publication-date match, not a photo taken on your date. Independent of NASA.
Get out your red/blue glasses and float next to asteroid Itokawa, a diminutive world of the solar system only half a kilometer across. Boulders strewn across its rough surface and the lack of craters indicate that this asteroid is a rubble pile, formed as smaller pieces collected and were kept together by gravity. The stereo view was constructed from images made by the Hayabusa spacecraft when it encountered the asteroid in 2005. After a long journey, the spacecraft re-entered the atmosphere on June 13 over Australia, successfully parachuting a capsule to Earth. Hayabusa's capsule could contain a small sample of material from rubble pile asteroid Itokawa. Ponder: Can you guess the result to this simple experiment?