Rosetta is set to rendezvous with the Steins asteroid, also known as Asteroid 2867, just before 1900 GMT Friday at a distance of just less than 500 miles (800 kilometers).

Already the craft, launched in March 2005, is some 250 million miles (400 million kilometers) away from Earth.

Once it flies by the irregularly shaped asteroid, it will begin taking images and measurements.

The data and pictures will be sent to ESA's Darmstadt control room and laboratories where they will be analyzed and unveiled to the world on Saturday.

"Once we learn more about asteroids and comets, we have reached another big step in understanding how planets are formed too," said Gerhard Schwehm, the Rosetta mission manager at ESA.

The timing of the flyby means that the asteroid will be illuminated by the sun, making it likely the transmitted images will be clear and concise.

Astronomers have had to work with limited data from brief flybys, such as when ESA's Giotto probe swept by Halley's Comet in 1986, photographing long canyons, broad craters and 3,000-foot hills.

Steins is Rosetta's first scientific target as it makes its incursion into the asteroid belt located between the orbits of Mars and Jupiter en route to its ultimate destination, the comet 67/P Churyumov-Gerasimenko, which is scheduled for 2014.

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