Pictures of Asteroids

Here are some cool asteroids pictures. You can turn any of these images into your computer desktop wallpaper. Just click on an image to enlarge it, and then right-click and choose “Set as Desktop Background”.

Here’s an image of asteroid 951 Gaspra which was captured by the spacecraft Galileo on October 29, 1991. Gaspra was discovered in 1916 by G. N. Neujmin, a Russian astronomer and was the first asteroid to be closely approached in space.

This is an image of an asteroid collision involving a comet-like asteroid, P/2010 A2 taken by the Hubble Space Telescope on January 29, 2010. The Hubble Space Telescope is an important research tool used by NASA and the European Space Agency.

This is an image of asteroid 2010 AB78 obtained by NASA’s Wide-Field Infrared Survey Explorer, or WISE. 2010 AB78, the red dot in the image, is 158 million kilometers away from the earth.

Here’s an image of asteroid Eros, the second largest among the asteroids near the earth. This image was taken by the NEAR (Near Earth Asteroid Rendezvous) Shoemaker spacecraft on February 12, 2001 as it landed to the asteroid’s surface.

This image of asteroid 5535 Annefrank was captured by NASA’s Stardust spacecraft on November 2, 2002. This image is the result of the practice flyby activity of Stardust Space Probe.

We have written many articles about asteroids for Universe Today. Here’s an article about the largest asteroid in the solar system, and here’s an article about the asteroid belt.

If you’d like more info about asteroids, check out NASA’s Solar System Exploration Homepage, and here’s a link to NASA’s Solar System Simulator.

We’ve also recorded related episodes of Astronomy Cast about Plate Tectonics. Listen here, Episode 55: The Asteroid Belt.

Tagged as: asteroid, asteroid belt, Asteroids, NASA, picture, pictures, Solar System