Germany ? The Rosetta deep space probe successfully passed close to an asteroid 250 million miles from Earth, the European Space Agency said Friday night.

In a mission that may bring man closer to solving the mystery of the solar system’s birth, the craft completed its flyby of the Steins asteroid, also known as Asteroid 2867 – now in the asteroid belt between the orbits of Mars and Jupiter – around 2:15 p.m. CDT.

Mission manager Gerhard Schwehm said the agency would work to get images and other data collected by the probe processed as soon as possible. He said the first images should be released to the public today.