Binary asteroid systems have attracted the attention of the scientific community due to their intriguing properties and significant impact on our understanding of the Solar System. Unlike single asteroids, binary systems provide unique insights into many fundamental processes, including planetary formation and evolution, collision dynamics, and gravitational interactions.
Gaia has discovered possible moons around 352 asteroids that are not known to have companion stars. Image courtesy of ESA.
Asteroids are fascinating celestial objects that hold unique insights into the formation and evolution of our solar system.
Binary stars are even more fascinating because they allow astronomers to study how different objects in the universe form, collide, and interact.
With our unique all-sky scanning function, ESA's Gaia satellite Since its launch in 2013, it has made a number of important asteroid discoveries.
In Data Release 3, Gaia pinpointed the positions and movements of more than 150,000 asteroids. That precision has allowed scientists to probe deeper, looking for asteroids that exhibit a characteristic “wobble” caused by the gravitational pull of their orbiting companion stars.
Gaia has also collected data on the asteroid's chemistry, compiling the largest ever collection of asteroid reflectance spectra – light curves that reveal an object's color and composition.
More than 150,000 orbits determined in Gaia's Data Release 3 were refined as part of the mission's Focused Product Release last year, making them 20 times more accurate.
Gaia's upcoming Data Release 4 (due after mid-2026) is expected to reveal the orbits of even more asteroids.
“Binary asteroids are difficult to find because most are very small and far away from Earth,” said Dr Luana Liberato, an astronomer at the Observatory of the Côte d'Azur.
“Although just under one in six asteroids are predicted to have companion stars, only half a billion of the one million known asteroids have been found to be in binary systems.”
“But this discovery shows that there are many more asteroid moons still waiting to be discovered.”
“If confirmed, this new discovery adds 352 potential binary systems, nearly doubling the known number of moon-bearing asteroids.”
“Gaia is proving to be an excellent asteroid explorer, working hard to unlock the secrets of the universe, both within our solar system and beyond,” said Dr Timo Prusti, ESA's Gaia project scientist.
“This discovery highlights the Gaia data release as a major improvement in data quality and demonstrates the incredible new science made possible by this mission.”
a paper A paper describing the results has been published in the journal Astronomy and Astrophysics.
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L. Liberato others2024. Binary asteroid candidate in the Gaia DR3 astronomical measurements. A&A 688, A50;doi: 10.1051/0004-6361/202349122
This article was based on an original release from ESA.
Source: www.sci.news
