Gilly

Gilly/Data

Gilly is a tiny asteroid and the only natural satellite of Eve. Gilly is the smallest celestial body in the Kerbol system. Landing on Gilly is challenging due to its very low mass, steep slopes, and highly eccentric orbit, making it very easy to overthrust engines or send a spacecraft tumbling. Escaping Gilly, however, is very easy — a Kerbal on EVA can use his jetpack to rise from Gilly's surface, achieve orbit, and escape its sphere of influence entirely.

Gilly has the least gravity of all bodies in the Kerbol system, with half of Jool's moon Pol due to its extremely small mass and size. A Kerbal can jump over 1000 meters on this moon. Gilly's gravity makes it ideal for very low fuel interplanetary missions. Gilly also has an irregular orbit, so catching the moon is a tad harder.

An unplanned encounter with Gilly is unlikely when approaching Eve, even if player's trajectory is near the plane of Gilly's orbit. This is because Gilly's sphere of influence is very small relative to the semi-major axis of its orbit — in fact, no other moon in the game has a smaller SOI-to-semi-major-axis ratio.

Gilly was once even more dangerous to land on due to a clipping bug with the collision mesh. This problem was fixed in version 0.17.1.

Topography

The topographic map of Gilly.

The surface of Gilly is extremely dynamic and uneven, with many steep slopes and smooth areas. Gilly has the lowest mass and gravitational force . Due to its minuscule mass and gravitational force, it does not have an atmosphere. Gillys color might come from a high content of solid carbon. This moon is considered a Captured Asteroid.

Reference Frames

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Like on Pol, an orbit under 20 km is unwise, as it will almost always clip into the terrain.

Gallery

An unsuccessful touchdown attempt in 0.17. Note the landing legs clipping through terrain.
Topographical image of Gilly.
Screenshot123.png

A successful EVA landing.
A topografic height map of Gilly as at Version 0.18.2 made with the ISA MapSat plugin