Deborah & William Hillyard
Deborah & William Hillyard
Deborah & William Hillyard
Deborah & William Hillyard
Deborah & William Hillyard

Solar System -

The Asteroid Belt

Asteroid Images  

(click any image to enlarge)
Gaspra


Asteroid 951 Gaspra.  This photograph was taken by the Galileo probe in 1991 while on route to Jupiter.  It was the first picture ever taken of an asteroid.  It is about 11 miles at its widest, so it is very small.                             
                                                                                                     Credit: USGS/NASA/JPL
Three Asteroids

• Ida (53.6 x 15.2 km, 33.3 x 9.4 miles) and its moon Dactyl (1.4 km, 4,600 feet),
• Mathilde (avg 52.8 km, 32.8 miles)
• Eros (34.4 x 11.2 km, 21.4 x 7 miles). 
They are not really positioned like this, having very different orbits; this is just a collage.  Here is a larger image of Eros.  Credit: NASA
Koronis Family


Another collage of images; this time, the Koronis family of Asteroids. 
                                                                                     Credit: NASA
Lutetia


Asteroid 21 Lutetia by the Rosetta probe from less than 2,000 miles away.  July 10th, 2010.       Credit: ESA
Ceres


A Hubble Space Telescope image of Ceres on the left, with a cutaway showing its possible internal structure on the right, though many believe that the interior is relatively undifferentiated.  The Dawn spacecraft is due to visit Ceres in 2015, and may help to define the structure more accurately. 
Another Rosetta spacecraft image of asteroid 21 Lutetia from a distance of 32,000 km (25,000 miles) with Saturn in the background.
Credit: NASA
Credit: ESA
Credit: NASA
Vesta


Left: 4 Vesta imaged by the Hubble Space Telescope. 
Right: The first Dawn spacecraft image taken on July 9th 2011 from 41,000 km.
Pallas
Credit: NASA
2 Pallas imaged by the Hubble Space Telescope.  If the Dawn spacecraft mission is successful, it may go on to fly by Pallas in around 2018.               Credit: NASA
2867 Šteins
Tiny 2867 Šteins, only 6.67 x 5.81 x 4.47 km, photographed by the Rosetta space probe from a distance of only 800 km (500 miles) in 2008.  No larger image available. 

                                                                                            Credit & Copyright: ESA
Credit: NASA
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