Rosetta flyby of Asteroid Steins, 5th September 2008 Options

[peter59]

Only 78 days to Stein encounter ! I can't believe I forgot about this event.

[jasedm]

This is a great way of characterising the small moon flybys in Cassini's schedule. I think Tallbear is referring to everything inside of Phoebe's orbit rather than the 30 or so rocks in eccentric/inclined orbits further out
Whilst the small inner moons may or may not be captured asteroids, the 24-for-one Cassini mission (Saturn plus 23 moons at reasonable ranges) is fantastically good value.
Cassini conducts a 'flyby' today of Pallene at 61,000km - a moon completely unknown before 2004. Were this a Rosetta flyby (or New Horizons) of an asteroid at that sort of range, the media and other interest would be much higher than it is.
Perhaps we've come to take Cassini's results for granted a little