Neujmin named it after Gaspra, a Black Sea retreat that was visited by his contemporaries, such as Gorky and Tolstoy.

Gaspra was the first asteroid ever to be closely approached when it was visited by the Galileo spacecraft, which flew by on its way to Jupiter on 29 October 1991.

[7] Apart from a multitude of small craters, Gaspra has half a dozen large flat areas and concavities.

It is uncertain whether these are the result of impacts or whether they are instead facets formed when Gaspra broke off its parent asteroid.

Gaspra's surface lacks unambiguous craters of a size comparable to its radius, like those seen for example on 253 Mathilde.

[10] It was suggested in 2007 that the fresh, steep craters on Gaspra were formed by the Baptistina family-forming event that happened near it.

[11] Grooves about 100 m (330 ft) to 300 m (980 ft) wide, up to 2.5 km (1.6 mi) long, and tens of meters deep are seen on Gaspra's surface, which may be related to Gaspra's formation along with the rest of the Flora family in an asteroid collision.

Also, correlations are seen between the subtle color variations and local topography, and it has been suggested that this is caused by the slow migration of regolith to lower areas.

Galileo flew by Gaspra on 29 October 1991, passing within 1,600 km (990 mi) at a relative speed of about 8 km/s (18,000 mph).