Gaspra

((951) Gaspra) A typical S-type asteroid discovered by the Ukrainian astronomer Grigoriy N. Neujmin in 1916. It became the first asteroid ever to be visited by a spacecraft from the Earth when it was imaged by the Galileo probe in Oct. 1991 from a distance of about 16 000 km; the spacecraft was on its way to Jupiter. Gaspra was found to be conical in shape, being about 15 km across at its broadest. The shape was consistent with it being a fragment produced by the breakup of a much larger body some time in the past. The surface was, however, much smoother than anticipated and lacked the expected number of large craters.

Collins Dictionary of Astronomy © Market House Books Ltd, 2006

The following article is from The Great Soviet Encyclopedia (1979). It might be outdated or ideologically biased.

Gaspra

an urban-type settlement in Crimean Oblast, Ukrainian SSR, 10 km southwest of Yalta. It is a seacoast climatic resort on the southern coast of the Crimea. There is a factory for reinforced concrete products and building materials in the settlement. Gaspra is surrounded by vineyards, orchards, and tobacco plantations.

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References in periodicals archive

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Mathilde, Gaspra and Ida, and many asteroids in this region are easily visible from Earth through a telescope.

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The researchers began their study by pondering the pattern of craters on 951 Gaspra, a member of the Flora family of asteroids.

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While en route to Jupiter on its long journey with gravity assists at Venus and Earth, the NASA Galileo spacecraft flew by two asteroids, 951 Gaspra in 1991 and 243 Ida in 1993, and obtained close-up imagery, spectra, and other measurements.

Planetary Exploration Missions

Elson's gothic house at Gaspra (1831-37) looks stylistically back more to the work of the Squire of Radway, Sanderson Miller, than to the emerging scholarship of the gothic revival.

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Answers: Celes - 3, Ida - 2, Hektor - 4, Gaspra - 1.

Asteroids, Meteors, and Comets

Before reaching Jupiter, Galileo passed through the asteroid belt, where it imaged the tiny worlds Gaspra and Ida.

Now you see it ... now you don't ..

On October 29, the Galileo space probe, sent into space in 1989 and on its way to a rendezvous with Jupiter in 1995, traveled within 1,000 miles of the asteroid 951 Gaspra and relayed the first black-and-white photographs ever taken of an asteroid in space.

First asteroid photograph

29, 1991, Galileo took the first photographs of a rocky asteroid, Gaspra, a body about 12 miles long.

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Now, after two asteroid flybys (Galileo flew past 951 Gaspra in 1991), one was discovered to have a moon.

Why do asteroids come in Pairs? A surprisingly large fraction of small bodies come in binaries and triplets