Asteroid Ida and its moon Dactyl, as imaged by the Galileo probe in 1993. NASA/JPL. Stay connected to The Universe: Get email alerts for this weekly column by Phil Plait. Enter your email.

On Aug. 28, 1993, NASA's Galileo spacecraft flew by the asteroid Ida on its way Jupiter. Galileo was the first spacecraft to fly by an asteroid in the asteroid belt. Ida was actually the second ...

The first discovery of an asteroid-moon system was asteroid Ida and its moon Dactyl in 1993. 3.) Asteroids can have ring systems (though they aren't quite as glorious as Saturn's).