Asteroid experts catch final glimpse of Solar Orbiter

Image: Last night, ESA's Planetary Defence team observed the rare moment in which an object escaped our planet's gravity, in contrast to their normal objects of study - potentially hazardous rocks that could strike it. At 19:15 UTC (20:15 CET) on 10 February, just over 20 hours after the launch of Solar Orbiter, the team took the opportunity to capture this sequence of observations using the Schmidt telescope at Calar Alto, Spain. The clip covers a timespan of about 10 minutes, and is made up of...