The European Space Agency’s Gaia space telescope has brought out interesting information about asteroids. According to Space.com AccordingDuring the Gaia mission, more than 350 asteroids have been seen to have moons revolving around them. The interesting thing is that before this, these asteroids were considered to be just rocks. But they also have moons!
The moons of some asteroids in the solar system have been discovered before. But now it has been claimed that 352 new such asteroid systems have been discovered, in which the asteroid is not alone, but it 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, researcher at the Côte d’Azur Observatory and head of the discovery, binary systems have been discovered in only 500 asteroids out of the 1 billion asteroids known in the universe. These include 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, the space agency NASA made a similar discovery about an asteroid. Its spacecraft Lucy is on an asteroid mission. It is gathering information about the asteroid Dinkinesh. During the mission, the spacecraft informed about the asteroid Dinkinesh that this asteroid also has its own moon.
This moon of the asteroid is 220 meters wide. It is continuously orbiting the asteroid but is at a distance of 434 kilometers from it. The interesting thing is that the asteroid Dinkinesh is only 790 meters big, and its moon is 220 meters big. NASA says that this is the smallest asteroid in the main asteroid belt that has been seen so closely.
Most of the asteroids found near the Earth are present in the asteroid belt. This belt is found between Mars and Jupiter. It is about 480 million kilometers away from the Earth.
