951 Gaspra is an S-type asteroid that orbits very close to the inner edge of the main asteroid belt. Gaspra was discovered by Russian astronomer G. N. Neujmin in 1916. Neujmin named it after Gaspra, a Black Sea retreat that was visited by his contemporaries, such as Gorky and Tolstoy.  Gaspra has dimensions 18.2 km × 10.5 km × 8.9 km, an orbit semi-major axis distance of 2.2099 AU, and is a member of the Flora family.  Gaspra was the first asteroid ever to be closely approached when it was visited by the Galileo spacecraft, which flew by on its way to Jupiter on 29 October 1991, passing within 1,600 km at a relative speed of about 8 km/s.

Manually created by RChen to complete mission Galileo

951 Gaspra Information Page

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