Credit: ESA 2010 MPS for OSIRIS Team MPS/UPD/LAM/IAA/RSSD/INTA/UPM/DASP/IDA ESA — CC BY-SA 3.0 IGO

ASTEROID

Lutetia

A large main-belt asteroid flown past by Rosetta in 2010 — possibly a primitive protoplanet survivor.

Orbits Sun

About Lutetia

21 Lutetia is a large main-belt asteroid flown past by ESA’s Rosetta spacecraft on 10 July 2010. Rosetta imagery revealed a battered body 121 × 101 × 75 km with mysteriously high density, suggesting it may be a primordial protoplanet that escaped disruption.

Physical Properties

Mean radius49 km

Rotation period8.1655 h

Bond albedo0.191

Orbit

OrbitsSun

Semi-major axis2.435 AU

Eccentricity0.163

Inclination3.064°

Orbital period3.8 yr

Gallery

Hand-picked mission imagery of Lutetia sourced from NASA and partner archives. Click any photo for full resolution and source attribution.

Asteroid 21 Lutetia, imaged by ESA's Rosetta (OSIRIS) on 10 July 2010. ESA 2010 MPS for OSIRIS Team MPS/UPD/LAM/IAA/RSSD/INTA/UPM/DASP/IDA · ESA u2014 CC BY-SA 3.0 IGO

Imagery on this page is provided by the original mission teams. Full attribution terms: Image Rights & Credits.

Sources & Further Reading

Numerical values (radius, mass, orbital elements, temperatures) are drawn from NASA NSSDC Planetary Fact Sheets, JPL Horizons, and the JPL Small-Body Database. Last refreshed: 2026-06-08 01:37:02.