PIA02649: An Irish Tale: One City, Two Asteroids
 Target Name:  Earth
 Is a satellite of:  Sol (our sun)
 Mission:  Terra
 Spacecraft:  Terra
 Instrument:  MISR
 Product Size:  1513 x 1590 pixels (w x h)
 Produced By:  JPL
 Addition Date:  2001-03-21
 Other  
Information: 
MISR Site
 Primary Data Set:  Earth Observing System (EOS)
 Full-Res TIFF:  PIA02649.tif (7.175 MB)
 Full-Res JPEG:  PIA02649.jpg (541.2 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 MISR nadir-camera image of Ireland was acquired on May 5, 2000 during Terra orbit 2026. The location of the town of Armagh in Northern Ireland is marked. Armagh is the site of the 200-year-old Armagh Observatory. The observatory's contributions to astronomical research were recently commemorated by the official naming of two asteroids, "ArmaghObs" and "Ardmacha." The latter is the ancient Gaelic name for the town, which was founded in 445 A.D. by St. Patrick.

The asteroids were discovered in July 1987 by planetary astronomer Eleanor Helin, Principal Investigator of JPL's Near-Earth Asteroid Tracking (NEAT) program. The new names were published in the January 2001 Minor Planet Circular of the International Astronomical Union.

The Irish Sea and the Isle of Man are located on the right-hand side of this image. Southwestern Scotland is visible in the upper right corner, and portions of northwestern Wales can be seen in the lower right.

MISR was built and is managed by NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, CA, for NASA's Office of Earth Science, Washington, DC. The Terra satellite is managed by NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, MD. JPL is a division of the California Institute of Technology.

Image Credit:
NASA/GSFC/LaRC/JPL, MISR Team

Image Addition Date:
2001-03-21