You need to upgrade your Flash Player The theme of this blog is not only and obviously space, but in particular “terrestrial worlds”, places that tend to have surfaces on which one could walk or at least attach oneself to. These places sometimes also have other earth-like familiar features such as atmospheres, weather, volcanos, geysers and perhaps, we are finding, even exotic oceans, rivers or lakes that are not necessarily made of familiar materials we are used to here at home. The second theme is imagery. Occasionally I do some retouching of images when needed if an image is incomplete or sometimes “dirty” or noisy. I will attempt to correct image shortcomings based upon other images or well-accepted presumed attributes. When this is done, notes will be offered as to what was added, why and sometimes how it was done. This way no one should ever wonder if something they are looking at is real or photoshop.
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Wallpaper: Ida and Dactyl

Wallpaper: Ida and Dactyl

The main body Ida and the smaller asteroid, or moon, named Dactyl are a part of the family of asteroids found between the orbits of Mars and Jupiter. It is thought that all of these types of asteroids were created by some cataclysmic event which blew apart a larger body, perhaps around 200 to 300 km in diameter. This event (which is theoretical) would also have taken place long after the formation of the solar system and so in celestial terms it is considered a “recent” event. That means had this event not taken place we would have had at least one more dwarf planet in our solar system than we do today.

This flyby was planned as an “extra” for the Galileo mission as they were for the most part “on the way” to its central mission to the Jupiter system. It is thought that Dactyl has a nearly identical composition to Ida and is therefore not thought to be a “captured” moon, but rather one formed somehow from itslef either from a later impact or from the destruction of the originating body.

This entry was posted on Saturday, December 9th, 2006 at 3:49 pm and is filed under Asteroids. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

2 Responses to “Wallpaper: Ida and Dactyl”

  1. lestrade Says:
    September 28th, 2009 at 3:25 pm

    Did you mean to say that Dactyl was the moon of Ida, instead of Gaspra? Nice site. thanks.

  2. Awederruy Says:
    August 30th, 2011 at 2:41 am

    About (951) Gaspra

    Gaspra is a Sun orbiting minor planet between Mars and Jupiter (a main-belt asteroid), just like Ida, but not a member of Koronis family. Gaspra was the first main-belt asteroid (and the firs minor planet) ever visited by spasecraft in 29 October 1991.

    And Gaspra was discovered a long time before the Galileo mission was invented. Gaspra was found in July 30, 1916 by Grigory Neujmin.

    And the moon of Ida, yes it’s name is Dactyl (also known as (243) Ida I). And it was discovered by Galileo mission team in 1994.

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