Exceptional photograph of asteroids Ida and Gaspra taken by Galileo

NASA. Exceptional photograph of asteroids IDA (left) and GASPRA (right) at the same scale. These images were taken by the Galileo spacecraft en route to Jupiter. Gaspra was imaged on October 29, 1991 at a distance of 5300 km. Ida was imaged on August 28, 1993 at a distance of 3,000 to 3,800 km. Both objects are irregular in shape. Gaspra is about 17km long, and Ida measures 9.3 x 12.7 x 29.9 km. These asteroids are just two of the billions of rocky, metallic objects orbiting the sun, mainly between Mars and Jupiter. A small percentage orbit near other planets. The irregular shapes of these objects suggest that they are "shavings" derived from larger bodies by catastrophic collisions between asteroids. The surfaces of Ida and Gaspra are dotted with small craters, evidence of much smaller collisions. Craters are more abundant on Ida, suggesting that it formed earlier than Gaspra.
Period chromogenic print. Legend on back label. 40.6 X 40.6CM with margins.