Chang'E 2 imaging of Toutatis succeeded beyond my expectations!

The Chang'E 2 mission flyby of Toutatis succeeded in acquiring images. Oh my goodness, did they succeed. This is awesome.

The images are much better than I expected them to be. There are also many more of them than I expected. I look forward to learning more about how they were acquired!

These, in combination with the incredible radar images still being acquired from Goldstone and innumerable optical observations, make Toutatis one of the best-studied asteroids in the solar system.

I'll have more to write about this in the future, but I wanted to share the news as soon as I heard it! Today, we need good news.

Here is a CCTV report on the encounter -- in Chinese, obviously, so all I get is "Chang-E," but the images in it are cool.