2023-08-28 11:59:49
Asteroid Ida as seen by the Galileo probe on August 28, 1993. – NASA/JPL/PROCESSED BY KEVIN M. GILL
MADRID, 28 Ago. (EUROPA PRESS) –
This August 28 marks the 30th anniversary of the first image of a moon around an asteroid, Captured by NASA’s Galileo mission.
Dactyl –which owes its name to the Dactyls, creatures that inhabited Mount Ida in Greek mythology– it is only 1.4 kilometers in diameter, about 1/20 the size of Ida, the asteroid it orbits.
Its orbit around Ida — an object discovered in 1884 — could not be determined with great precision, but the constraints on possible orbits allowed a rough determination of Ida’s density and revealed that it is depleted of metallic minerals. Dactyl and Ida share many characteristics, suggesting a common origin.
The images obtained by Galileo and the subsequent measurement of Ida’s mass provided new insights into the geology of S-type asteroids. Prior to Galileo’s flyby, many different theories had been proposed to explain its mineral composition.
Determining its composition makes it possible to correlate the fall of meteorites to Earth and their origin in the asteroid belt. Data obtained from the flyby pointed to S-type asteroids as the source of ordinary chondrite meteorites, the most common type found on Earth’s surface, informs Wikipedia.
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