Some days ago, NASA released a paper presenting the preliminary results from Goldstone radar antennas with the first 18 images showing 2012 DA14 tumbling around its axis in 7 hours
http://www.oosa.unvienna.org/pdf/pres/s ... eo-05E.pdf . Even though the images are just some pixels wide, they represent an incredible resolution, way beyond the capabilities of any optical telescope, including Hubble.
The second advantage of the radar images is that the scale is constant while the distance of the Asteroid increases from 120,000 to 314,000 km.
I cut out, processed and upsized the tiny images to see what an animation could possibly reveal.
As the gap between the frames was a full 20° on average, the animation was not smooth enough so I used a morphing technique to calculate 8 new frames in between each of the basic 18.
I was astonished to see how clearly it showed the rotation of the elongated asteroid but also that it could possibly be peanut-shaped like comet Hartley or the asteroid Toutatis.
Of course, the tiny size of the originals are demanding some cautions when it comes to the interpretation and possible conclusions of what is shown.
On the 19th of february Nasa released more images and their own movie so I got a go-ahead to upload my animation
http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/news.php?release=2013-063
/*Peter R
Link to higher definition animation:
http://spaceweather.com/submissions/pic ... 403066.gif
Hope you like it.
