This is the Web Edition of "A Trip Into Space", a Coimbra-based electronic book on space science. Both the texts and the photos are by courtesy of National Aeronautics and Space Administration.
| This is the Web Edition of "A Trip Into Space", a Coimbra-based electronic book on space science. Both the texts and the photos are by courtesy of National Aeronautics and Space Administration.
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A Trip Into Space  Asteroids Asteroid Gaspra - Comparison With Deimos And Phobos |
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| See also: Asteroid Fact Sheet, Mars' Satellite Phobos By Viking 1, Mars' Satellite Phobos, Mars' Satellite Phobos And Stickney Crater From 1600 Km, Asteroid Gaspra - Montage, Asteroid 951 Gaspra |   |
All three bodies have irregular shapes, due to past catastrophic conditions. However their surfaces appear remarkably different, possibly because of differences in composition but most likely because of very different impact histories.
The Phobos and Deimos images were obtained by the Viking Orbiter spacecraft in 1977; the Gaspra image is the best of a series obtained by the Galileo spacecraft on October 29, 1991. Galileo is scheduled to add the detailed view of another asteroid when it flies by Ida in August 1993.
The Galileo project, whose primary mission is the exploration of the Jupiter system in 1995-97, is managed for NASA's Office of Space Science and Applications by the Jet Propulsion Laboratory.
Last Update: 2005-Nov-29