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1993-05-03
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PUBLIC INFORMATION OFFICE
JET PROPULSION LABORATORY
CALIFORNIA INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY
NATIONAL AERONAUTICS AND SPACE ADMINISTRATION
PASADENA, CALIF. 91109. TELEPHONE (818) 354-5011
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE November 14, 1991
Scientists from the Galileo project today released the
world's first close-up image of an asteroid, taken October 29 by
the Galileo spacecraft some 34 minutes before it flew past the
asteroid Gaspra at a distance of 1,600 kilometers (1,000 miles).
At that time the spacecraft and the asteroid were about 330
million kilometers (205 million miles) from the Sun, and 410
million kilometers (255 million miles) from Earth.
The picture was taken through a green filter by the Galileo
spacecraft's imaging system at a range of about 16,200 kilometers
(10,000 miles) from Gaspra. It is one of about a dozen pictures
Galileo took of the asteroid.
The Galileo team expects to have the spacecraft transmit to
Earth next year all the spacecraft's Gaspra observations,
including one picture taken at even closer range, a group to be
combined with this green-filter image to make a color picture,
other images and other scientific data.
The Galileo project, whose primary mission is to explore the
Jupiter system in 1995-97, is managed for NASA's Office of Space
Science and Applications by the Jet Propulsion Laboratory.
#####