Asteriods

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Ida and its small moon, Dactyl. Ida lies in the Asteroid Belt, which is between Mars and Jupiter. Ida is one of the larger Asteroids in the Asteroid belt. In fact it is so big it even has its own moon.

Idas asteroid moon, Dactyl.

Gaspra is another Asteroid in the Asteroid Belt. Gaspra is an irregularly shaped body about 19 x 12 x 11 km. Gaspra rotates counterclockwise once every 7 hours. This image, as well as, the other images of Ida, were taken with the Galileo space craft when it flew past the astroid belt on its way to other worlds in our solar system.

Radar images of the asteroid Toutatis obtained by NASA. Toutatis is also in the Asteroid belt but not all Asteroids lay in the Asteroid Belt. Some orbit outside its belt including the next two we'll look at.

Mathilde is an Asteroid that came close to Earth in the not so distant past. Mathilde is estimated to be 50 x 53 x 57 km in dimension. A satellite named NEAR, flew past Mathild in the late 90s. Roughly 60% of the surface, as scientist would call it, was imaged by NEAR. Five craters larger than 20 km in diameter were seen.

Here is 3 images of another Near Earth Asteroid, named Eros. This image was also taken by the NEAR satellite.