Almost 100 km in size, Lutetia was discovered on 15 November 1852 by Hermann M.S. Goldschmidt in Paris and dedicated to the town itself, which was known to the Romans as Lutetia Parisiorum (Lutetia of the Parisii tribe).

On penetrating the asteroid belt for the second time, the vehicle will pass Lutetia on 10 July 2010 at a range of about 3,055 km, traveling at a relative speed of 15 km/s. The data from the IRAS infrared astronomy satellite enabled the average diameter of this object to be roughly estimated during the 1980s at 95.5 km, but a number of light curves obtained since, most recently by the Hubble Space Telescope, have enabled astronomers to determine that it is asymmetric and about 132 x 101 x 93 km across, and to rotate in a little over 8 hours. Observations at a range of ‘look angles’ even revealed variations which hinted at the presence of one or more large craters in the northern hemisphere. Lutetia is therefore one of the best-characterized asteroids to receive a spacecraft inspection. However, despite a large number of spectroscopic studies, its taxonomic class was debated. For a long time it was listed as an M-class object that spectrally resembled some iron-rich meteorites. As yet, no such body has been visited. But this classification was not confirmed by infrared observations by the European Southern Observatory, a telescope in Hawaii and the Spitzer Space Telescope, nor by ultraviolet observations by the Hubble Space Telescope. Hence Lutetia is now regarded as an anomalous C-class object, reflecting more light than other members of the class, possibly implying that its surface is ‘unweathered’. In fact, Lutetia appears similar to some metal-rich carbonaceous chondrite meteorites. Rosetta made observations of Lutetia in January 2007, just before the Mars flyby, in order to assist in characterizing its light curve, rotation period and spin axis.

I think a good rule of thumb would be: it's an atmosphere if the body it surrounds is more or less spherical.

I think you're right, nprev. We don't see the atmospheric pressure at the top of Mt Everest being any higher than at any other equal altitude on Earth (though this may be a bad example due to the high mass of the planet).

LOOT-eh-shee-ah

asteroid (21) Lutetia is well described by a wedge of Camembert cheese (justifying the Parisian name of Lutetia)

There are two very interesting papers on adaptive optics observations of Lutetia on arXiv today:
Physical properties of ESA/NASA Rosetta target asteroid (21) Lutetia: Shape and flyby geometry
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Well, since it is the Latin name for Paris, I would defer to our French members.

Perhaps their time joined together under the Holy Roman Empire was one reason for this shared orthographic feature.

With the latest orbit determination and following the flight rules, there will be no manoeuvre [needed] at the TCM [trajectory correction manouevre] slot 40 hours before the flyby. Also, it is considered that there will be no need to use the manoeuvre slot at 12 hours before the flyby, unless a anything changes.

Mindful of media interest in the encounter -- but also of the World Cup schedule -- ESA plans to have the first black-and-white images prepared for public release around 21:05 or possibly later if the Third Place match runs into overtime.

which "on ground" resolution will the onboard camera be able to reach?

Looking forward to this flyby as it will add yet another asteroid to the list of objects visited by a spacecraft and studied up close. Will Rosetta be taking other measurements of Lutetia apart from images?