(951) Gaspra

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(951) Gaspra is an asteroid of the main asteroid belt, which on 30 July 1916 by the Ukrainian astronomer G. N. Neuimin ( Григорий Николаевич Неуймин ) was discovered. Gaspra was named after the resort Gaspra in the Crimea, in which the Russian writer Leo Tolstoy lived a long time.

Gaspra moves at a distance of 1.8256 ( perihelion ) to 2.5939 ( aphelion ) astronomical units in 3,285 years of the sun. The orbit is inclined 4.1016 ° to the ecliptic, the orbital eccentricity is 0.1739. Thus Gaspras orbit extending at the inner edge of the main belt. Gaspra is a member of the Flora family.

Gaspra was on 29 October 1991 by the Galileo spacecraft (named after Galileo Galilei) in a flyby maneuver (English near flyby ) measured at a distance of 1600 miles and photographed.

Thus, the Galileo mission was the first of its kind, which garnered by such a maneuver information on an asteroid.

It was found that an irregularly shaped asteroid Gaspra with dimensions of 19 × 12 × 11 km. The surface is covered with numerous impact craters. By measuring the size and distribution of craters Gaspras age is estimated at 200 million years. This is measured at the 4.5 billion years of the solar system, a young age. Gaspra is therefore likely to a fragment of a larger source body to be that was torn apart 200 million years ago in a collision. The mass of Gaspra was determined to be 1015 kg. The rotation period is 7 hours and 3 minutes. Due to its surface properties of the asteroid spectral class S is assigned.