Image issued by Galileo

1992/01/01 Elhuyar Zientzia Iturria: Elhuyar aldizkaria

• Astronomia

Last October 29, the Galileo space probe sent a photo of an asteroid. The asteroid Gaspa was located at 16.200 km and the image was made with a green filter. The passage through the area of Gaspa was not initially planned in the mission of Galileo.

But the Challenger explosion delayed the mission and had to change some targets. Galileo will make a quite rare tour to reach Jupiter. And it is that you will pass once through the environment of Artizar and twice through the environment of the Earth.

The images you sent from Gaspa are of poor quality, as it has emitted them using a small antenna. The main antenna used to broadcast images of Jupiter satellites has not been extended and the mission has lost one of the most interesting points.