Michael Braukus

Headquarters, Washington, D.C.

May 25, 1994
(Phone: 202/358-1547)

James H. Wilson
Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif.
(Phone: 818/354-5011)

RELEASE: 94-83

NEW GALILEO ASTEROID MOON IMAGES, DATA RELEASED

New pictures of the asteroid 243 Ida and its newly discovered
moon taken by NASA's Galileo spacecraft were released today by
mission scientists.

New data from Galileo suggest that although Ida and its natural
satellite -- the first asteroid moon ever photographed -- are
similar in color and brightness, they appear to be composed of
different types of material, the scientists said.

The scientists also reported that new results show that Ida is
more irregular in shape than Gaspra, another asteroid which the
Galileo spacecraft encountered two years earlier.

Galileo took multiple images of Ida seen from different angles

as the asteroid rotated during the spacecraft encounter.

Scientists also used the images to begin estimating an orbit

for the asteroid's tiny moon. Its motion, in the same direction
as Ida's rotation, appears to be in a plane viewed nearly edge-on
by the spacecraft -- making it difficult to determine the exact
orbital shape and period.
 "A circular orbit at 60 miles (90 kilometers), nearly in Ida's
equatorial plane, with a period of about one Earth day, appears to
fit the observations we have now," said Kenneth P. Klaasen, a
member of the imaging team.

"However, a range of elliptical orbits cannot be ruled out

yet," he added. "Other observations that are still on Galileo's
onboard tape recorder -- to be played back next month -- should
permit us to improve the calculation."

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There are different explanations for the origin of Ida's one

mile-diameter (1.5-kilometer) moon. It might be a large block
thrown off during an impact that formed one of the large craters
visible on Ida's surface.

"More likely," said imaging team member Dr. Clark Chapman, "the
moon was formed during the cataclysmic fragmentation and
disruption of a larger asteroid in which Ida itself was formed.

"In this scenario, the little moon was ejected from the
explosion in practically the same orbit as Ida, and was captured
in the larger object's gravitational field," Chapman continued,
"while most other fragments went into independent orbits around
the Sun."

Galileo's near-infrared mapping spectrometer, which initially

confirmed the discovery of Ida's moon, provided the data for
thermal and mineralogical maps of the surface of Ida and
mineralogical studies of its moon.

"We have good data on what minerals make up these bodies, "
said Dr. Robert Carlson, principal investigator for the
spectrometer. "The areas on Ida's surface where we have our best
data appear to be predominantly olivine, with a bit of
orthopyroxene -- while its moon is quite different, with a roughly
equal mixture of olivine, orthopyroxene and clinopyroxene."

"This suggests the moon is not a chip off the asteroid."

These and other results from the Ida encounter will be

discussed by the Galileo scientists in a special session of the
American Geophysical Union's spring 1994 meeting in Baltimore,
Md., on Thursday, May 26.

Ida orbits the Sun at an average distance of 270 million miles

(440 million kilometers) in about the middle of the asteroid belt
between Mars and Jupiter. The asteroid is about 36 miles (58
kilometers) long and 14 miles (23 kilometers) wide, and rotates
once every 4 hours, 40 minutes. One of only two asteroids ever
observed close-up, it was encountered Aug. 28, 1993, by the
Galileo spacecraft on its way to Jupiter.

Pictures and other scientific data taken during the flyby were
stored on Galileo's onboard tape recorder; playback is still
underway. Ida's moon was discovered in data played back and
analyzed in February and March 1994.

Galileo executed its other asteroid flyby, of the rocky body

Gaspra, on
Oct. 29, 1991.

NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif., manages the

Galileo project for NASA's Office of Space Science, Washington,
D.C.

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