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Space
Station Info ::
Space
Asteroids :: Asteroid
Exploration
Asteroid
Exploration
Until the age of space travel,
asteroids
were merely pinpricks of light in even the largest telescopes
and their shapes and terrain remained a mystery.
 The first close-up photographs of asteroid-like
objects were taken in 1971 when the Mariner 9 probe imaged
Phobos and Deimos, the two small moons of Mars, which are
probably, captured asteroids. These images revealed the irregular,
potato-like shapes of most asteroids, as did subsequent images
from the Voyager probes of the small moons of the gas giants.The
first true asteroid to be photographed in close-up was 951
Gaspra in 1991, followed in 1993 by 243 Ida and its moon Dactyl,
all of which were imaged by the Galileo probe en route to
Jupiter.
The first dedicated asteroid probe was NEAR
Shoemaker, which photographed 253 Mathilde in 1997, before
entering into orbit around 433 Eros, finally landing on its
surface in 2001. Other asteroids briefly visited by spacecraft
en route to other destinations include 9969 Braille (by Deep
Space 1 in 1999), and 5535 Annefrank (by Stardust in 2002).
In September 2005, the Japanese
Hayabusa probe started studying 25143 Itokawa in detail and
will return samples of its surface to earth. Following that,
the next asteroid encounters will involve the European Rosetta
probe (launched in 2004), which will study 2867 steins and
21 Lutetia in 2008 and 2010. NASA is planning to launch the
Dawn Mission in 2006, which will orbit both 1 Ceres and 4
Vesta in 2010-2014.
Also see
Asteroids Exploration
Asteroids Discovery
Asteroids Classifications
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