Three’s a crowd (non-annotated)

Between Mars and Jupiter lie some of the relics of the early Solar System: the main asteroid belt. This belt is full of unusual asteroids whose origins reveal the building blocks of the early terrestrial planets. Of these, one of the more intriguing is Elektra, imaged here using the instrument SPHERE, installed on ESO’s Very Large Telescope at Paranal, Chile. 

Previously, Elektra was known to have not one but two moons orbiting it. But now a team of astronomers, led by Anthony Berdeu, from the National Astronomical Research Institute of Thailand, have found a new satellite orbiting the asteroid. This discovery makes Elektra the first ever quadruple asteroid system.

This new, third moonlet of Elektra, provisionally named S/2014 (130) 2, lies closer to its parent asteroid than the other moons, at an average distance just under 350 km, and is 15000 times fainter than Elektra. The team used public data from the ESO science archive and a new processing technique to reveal this small moon. The discovery will help astronomers understand how these satellites form and, in turn, provides crucial information about planetary formation and evolution of our own solar system.

SPHERE, the Spectro-Polarimetric High-contrast Exoplanet REsearch instrument, is a powerful planet-finding instrument. It uses an extreme adaptive optics system which allows for real time corrections of turbulence in the Earth’s atmosphere which causes stars to twinkle. It was only with SPHERE’s sensitivity and spatial resolution, coupled with cutting-edge data processing techniques, that the team was able to spot Elektra’s newest satellite.

Link

Źródło:

ESO/Berdeu et al., Yang et al.

O zdjęciu

Identyfikator:potw2207b
Typ:Planetarny
Data publikacji:14 lutego 2022 06:00
Rozmiar:880 x 880 px

O obiekcie

Nazwa:(130) Elektra
Typ:Solar System : Interplanetary Body : Asteroid
Kategoria:Solar System

Formaty zdjęć

Pełen rozmiar
576,2 KB
Wielki JPEG
56,6 KB

Powiększenie


Tapety

1024x768
56,0 KB
1280x1024
80,9 KB
1600x1200
109,5 KB
1920x1200
127,1 KB
2048x1536
165,4 KB

Kolory i filtry

PasmoDługość faliTeleskop
Podczerwony
H
1.625 μmVery Large Telescope
SPHERE
Podczerwony
J
1.245 μmVery Large Telescope
SPHERE
Podczerwony
Y
1.043 μmVery Large Telescope
SPHERE