Galileo needed three major gravitational slingshots to gather enough speed to make it to Jupiter. The VEEGA (Venus-Earth-Earth Gravity Assist) maneuver caused Galileo to fly by Venus on February 10, 1990; Earth on December 8, 1990; and Earth again on December 8, 1992. The extra flight time and distance proved to be scientifically fortuitous. Galileo was able to pass close by and thus study two asteroids: Gaspra (on October 29, 1991) and Ida (August 28, 1993). On the latter pass, it found the first-ever moon around an asteroid: the smaller asteroid Dactyl, orbiting Ida. Then in 1994 about a year away from its destination, Galileo’s cameras were well positioned to observe the collision of the fragments of Comet Shoemaker-Levy 9 into Jupiter.