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All asteroids and comets visited by spacecraft as of June 2010

All asteroids and comets visited by spacecraft as of June 2010
All asteroids and comets visited by spacecraft as of June 2010

The total of four comets and nine asteroid systems (including ten separate bodies) that have been examined up close by spacecraft are shown here to scale with each other (100 meters per pixel, in the fully enlarged version). Most of these were visited only briefly, in flyby missions, so we have only one point of view on each; only Eros and Itokawa were orbited and mapped completely. When Hartley 2 is added to this montage, it will appear approximately the same size as Dactyl or Braille -- much smaller than the other four comets that have been visited to date (which are grouped in the lower right corner).

This image is also available without text, and as a larger version at 20 meters per pixel (8600x6250 pixels, 9.4 MB).

Montage by Emily Lakdawalla. Ida, Dactyl, Braille, Annefrank, Gaspra, Borrelly: NASA / JPL / Ted Stryk. Steins: ESA / OSIRIS team. Eros: NASA / JHUAPL. Itokawa: ISAS / JAXA / Emily Lakdawalla. Mathilde: NASA / JHUAPL / Ted Stryk. Lutetia: ESA / OSIRIS team / Emily Lakdawalla. Halley: Russian Academy of Sciences / Ted Stryk. Tempel 1: NASA / JPL / UMD. Wild 2: NASA / JPL.