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New photos of ‘dog-bone’ asteroid reveal that it’s truly weird

Probably the most detailed telescope images but of the asteroid Kleopatra — named after the traditional Egyptian queen — clearly present its bizarre “dog-bone” form, and astronomers say their research of it may yield clues concerning the photo voltaic system.

The most recent observations of the asteroid, greater than 125 million miles from Earth in the primary asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter, have allowed scientists to extra precisely measure Kleopatra’s uncommon form and mass — and it’s turned out to be a few third lighter than anticipated, which provides clues to its composition and formation.

“Asteroids are usually not inert our bodies however advanced mini-geological worlds,” mentioned Franck Marchis, a senior planetary astronomer on the SETI Institute in California and the lead creator of a brand new research of Kleopatra revealed this month within the journal Astronomy and Astrophysics. “Kleopatra and different bizarre asteroids are pure laboratories to problem our information of the photo voltaic system and make us suppose exterior the field.”

Kleopatra was found in 1880 and attracts its title from the unique spelling of Cleopatra within the Greek alphabet. It’s comparatively massive for an asteroid and was noticed by Earth-based telescopes for many years to find out its orbit across the solar. Its peculiar form was solely confirmed by radar about 10 years in the past.

The most recent images from the European Southern Observatory’s highly effective Very Giant Telescope in northern Chile present extra element of its unusual form — with two massive lobes linked by a thick “neck,” in order that it distinctly resembles a bone.

Kleopatra is roughly 160 miles finish to finish — concerning the measurement of New Jersey — and weighs greater than 3,300 trillion tons. It rotates roughly each 5 hours, and astronomers predict if it rotated a lot quicker its lobes would possibly spin aside.

Measurement comparability of the asteroid Kleopatra with northern Italy.European Southern Observatory

Marchis mentioned Kleopatra’s uncommon form is a clue to its composition. “It’s most likely a loosely sure asteroid, fabricated from rubble of iron materials,” he mentioned in an e mail.

The researchers suppose it might have fashioned from the particles of an affect between bigger asteroids that occurred billions of years in the past.

A group led by Marchis introduced in 2008 that their observations confirmed Kleopatra additionally has two small moons, every just a few miles throughout, which they dubbed AlexHelios and CleoSelene after two of the Egyptian queens’ kids.

This processed picture exhibits the 2 moons of the asteroid Kleopatra, center, AlexHelios and CleoSelene, which seem as two small white dots within the top-right and bottom-left corners of the image.European Southern Observatory

It’s common for asteroids to have moons, or to type “binary methods” the place two asteroids orbit one another. Not less than 15 asteroids in the primary belt are recognized to have moons, and greater than 400 orbiting pairs of asteroids have been discovered, Marchis mentioned.

The most recent observations have allowed astronomers to make detailed measurements of the orbits of the moons round Kleopatra, he mentioned, which recommend they’re historical conglomerations of rubble spun off from the primary asteroid — in different phrases, Kleopatra could have “given beginning”  to its  kids.

 

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