The Gaia space telescope of the European Space Agency has brought out interesting information about asteroids. space dot com AccordingDuring the Gaia mission, more than 350 asteroids have been observed to have their moons revolving around them. The interesting thing is that earlier these asteroids were considered to be single stones. But they also have moons!
The moons of some asteroids present in the solar system have already been discovered. But now 352 new such asteroid systems have been claimed to have appeared, in which the asteroid is not alone, but also has a binary system. These are called binary asteroids.
These asteroids are not easily visible, because they are present at a great distance from our Earth. According to Luana Liberato, a researcher at the Côte d’Azur Observatory and head of the discovery, binary systems have been discovered in only 500 of the 1 billion asteroids known in the universe. Which also includes these new 352 asteroids. The discovery indicates that there are still many more asteroids that have a binary system, and they are yet to be discovered.
In November last year, space agency NASA had made another similar new discovery about an asteroid. Its spacecraft is on Lucy asteroid mission. It is gathering information about asteroid Dinkinesh. During the mission, the spacecraft gave information about the asteroid Dinkinesh that this asteroid also has its own moon.
This moon of the asteroid is 220 meters wide. It is continuously revolving around the asteroid but is at a distance of 434 kilometers from it. Interestingly, the asteroid Dinkinesh is only 790 meters large, and its moon is 220 meters large. NASA says that this is the smallest asteroid in the main asteroid belt that has been seen from such close proximity.
Most of the asteroids found near the Earth are present in the asteroid belt. This belt is found between Mars and Jupiter. It is approximately 48 crore kilometers away from the Earth.
