APAS 1110 Summer 1996
Cool Image of the Day -- June 25
This color picture is made from images taken by the Galileo spacecraft about 14 minutes before its closest approach to Ida at a range of about 10,500 kilometers (6,500 miles). The color is enhanced in the sense that the camera is sensitive to near-infrared wavelengths of light beyond human vision; a natural color picture of this asteroid would appear mostly gray.
There are brighter areas, appearing bluish in the picture, around craters on the upper left end of Ida, around the small bright crater near the center of the asteroid and near the upper right-hand edge (the limb). This suggests a difference in the abundance of or composition of iron-bearing minerals in these areas. Ida's moon also has a different color in the violet than any area on this side of Ida. (Courtesy NASA/JPL)
Previous Cool Images of the Day