Asteroid Wallpaper

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

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 amazing artist concept of the remains of an asteroid as seen by the Spitzer Space Telescope. Asteroids are minor planets. Like planets, asteroids also orbit around the Sun.

This is an image of the asteroid Eros as seen by the NEAR Shoemaker spaceprobe in September 2000. Eros, an S-type asteroid is the first asteroid discovered to have a near-earth orbit.

This composite image of the asteroid 243 Ida comes from the different images obtained by the Galileo spacecraft’s imaging system on August 28, 1993. Ida was the second asteroid visited by the Galileo spacecraft after Gaspra.

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.

We have written many articles about asteroids for Universe Today. Here’s an article about the asteroid belt, and here’s an article about an asteroid hitting earth.

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 the Asteroid Belt. Listen here, Episode 55: The Asteroid Belt.