The asteroid was named 243 Ida in 1884 by astronomer, brewer and beer drinker, Moriz von Kuffner. Ida was a wood nymph in Greek mythology and one of the nurses that cared for the infant Zeus. Dude, people that love the night sky, are really interesting.
The asteroid’s moon was discovered in the 1990s by the Gallio probe was named Dactyl. The Dactyl’s were a mythical race of male servants who supported Rhea, the mother of Zeus.
So yeah, that’s pretty cool. Not sure what else to say. Pretty neat that an asteroid can have a moon of it’s own. Yep, it’s got a moon.
Y’all didn’t think this was a professional blog where I would like have a follow up to that, right?
Here are some of Ida’s stats:
Radius: 9.7555 mi
Mass: 4.2 × 10^16 kg
Weight: Nothing, it’s in space just floating there.
Orbital period: 1,768 days (basically five years)
Gravity: 0.0109 m/s²
Moons: 1
Reading on the suspect
- Galileo’s Encounter with 243 Ida: An Overview of the Imaging Experiment
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0019103596900329
- Planetary Society 243 Ida
https://www.planetary.org/space-images/ida_galileo
- Bulk density of asteroid 243 Ida from the orbit of its satellite Dactyl
https://pubs.er.usgs.gov/publication/70018982