PIA00297: High Resolution View of Dactyl
 Target Name:  Dactyl
 Is a satellite of:  Ida
 Mission:  Galileo
 Spacecraft:  Galileo Orbiter
 Instrument:  Solid-State Imaging 
 Product Size:  700 x 700 pixels (w x h)
 Produced By:  JPL
 Producer ID:  P44297
 Addition Date:  1996-09-12
 Primary Data Set:  Galileo EDRs
 Full-Res TIFF:  PIA00297.tif (22.07 kB)
 Full-Res JPEG:  PIA00297.jpg (7.709 kB)

Click on the image above to download a moderately sized image in JPEG format (possibly reduced in size from original)

Original Caption Released with Image:

This image is the most detailed picture of the recently discovered natural satellite of asteroid 243 Ida taken by the Galileo Solid-State Imaging camera during its encounter with the asteroid on August 28, 1993. Shuttered through the camera's broadband clear filter as part of a 30-frame mosaic designed to image the asteroid itself, this frame fortuitously captured the previously unknown moon at a range of about 3,900 kilometers (2,400 miles), just over 4 minutes before the spacecraft's closest approach to Ida. Each picture element spans about 39 meters (125 feet) on the surface of the moon. More than a dozen craters larger than 80 meters (250 feet) in diameter are clearly evident, indicating that the moon has suffered numerous collisions from smaller Solar System debris during its history. The larger crater on the terminator is about 300 meters (1,000 feet) across. The satellite is approximately egg-shaped, measuring about 1.2 x 1.4 x 1.6 kilometers (0.75 x 0.87 x 1 mile). At the time this image was shuttered, Ida was about 90 kilometers (56 miles) away from the moon, outside this frame to the left and slightly below center. This image was relayed to Earth from Galileo on June 8, 1994. The Galileo project, whose primary mission is the exploration of the Jupiter system in 1995-97, is managed for NASA's Office of Space Science by the Jet Propulsion Laboratory.

Image Credit:
NASA/JPL

Image Addition Date:
1996-09-12