Orbit and Rotation
Ida is a member of the Koronis family of asteroid-belt asteroids. Ida orbits the Sun at an average distance of 2.862 AU (428.1 Gm), between the orbits of Mars and Jupiter. Ida takes 4.84089 years to complete one orbit.
Ida's rotation period is 4.63 hours, making it one of the fastest rotating asteroids yet discovered. The calculated maximum moment of inertia of a uniformly dense object the same shape as Ida coincides with the spin axis of the asteroid. This suggests that there are no major variations of density within the asteroid. Ida's axis of rotation precesses with a period of 77 thousand years, due to the gravity of the Sun acting upon the nonspherical shape of the asteroid.
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“Words can have no single fixed meaning. Like wayward electrons, they can spin away from their initial orbit and enter a wider magnetic field. No one owns them or has a proprietary right to dictate how they will be used.”
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