Very Large Telescope Images 42 of the Biggest Asteroids in Our Solar System - Gizmodo

NASA has counted over 1 million asteroids to date, and recently, the Very Large Telescope at the European Southern Observatory imaged 42 of the largest ones.

“Only three large main belt asteroids, Ceres, Vesta and Lutetia, have been imaged with a high level of detail so far, as they were visited by the space missions Dawn and Rosetta of NASA and the European Space Agency, respectively,” said Pierre Vernazza from the Laboratoire d’Astrophysique de Marseille in France in an ESO press release.

The images were taken using the SPHERE instrument on the telescope, which ordinarily does direct imaging of exoplanets, but in this case was able to get a great look at a number of asteroids in the main belt.

The asteroids range from the very dense ones, like Kalliope and Psyche, to some of the least dense, like Sylvia and Lamberta.