Asteroid 951 Gaspra

Filed under pretty pictures, global views, amateur image processing, asteroids, asteroid 951 Gaspra, Galileo

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Galileo's highest-resolution global view of asteroid Gaspra. This is a mosaic of two images captured on October 29, 1991 from a distance of about 5350 kilometers.

NASA / JPL / Emily Lakdawalla

Gaspra is 18.2 by 10.5 by 8.9 kilometers in diameter. Galileo flew by Gaspra October 29, 1991, passing within 1,600 kilometers. 57 images were returned to Earth, the closest ones (including the two used to make this mosaic) taken from a distance of 5350 kilometers. Those images have a resolution of about 54 meters/pixel. The view above has been magnified by a factor of two from the original resolution.

Copyright holder: Emily Lakdawalla

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.
Contact us to request publication permission from the copyright holder. Original image data dated on or about October 29, 1991