On this day #1
On this day in 1991, the American Galileo spacecraft made its closest approach to an asteroid called 951 Gaspra, and became the first probe ever to visit one.
For as long as people have looked up, asteroids have been faint points of light, too small and too far away to see as anything more. That day, a machine built by human hands flew right past one, out in the dark between the planets. A distant speck had become a real place with a shape of its own.
The picture here is not of the spacecraft. It is a portrait of Galileo Galilei, the man whose name it carried, painted by Justus Sustermans around 1640.
Halloween is a couple of days away, and many of us will be outside after dark with the little ones. It's a nice time to look up and remember how much of that sky we've come to know a little better.
Photo: Justus Sustermans, 1640. Wikimedia Commons, Public domain.
Justus Sustermans, 1640 · Wikimedia Commons, Public domain · https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Galileo.arp.300pix.jpg
Sources:
- https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Galileo.arp.300pix.jpg
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Galileo_(spacecraft)
