Kalliope and Psyche

These images have been captured with the Spectro-Polarimetric High-contrast Exoplanet REsearch (SPHERE) instrument on ESO’s Very Large Telescope as part of a programme that surveyed 42 of the largest asteroids in our Solar System. They show Kalliope and Psyche, the two densest objects imaged, which have a density of 4.4 and 3.9 grammes per cubic centimetre respectively. This is higher than the density of diamond (3.5 grammes per cubic centimetre).