- ESA probe discovers hundreds of possible moons of asteroids
The European space probe "Gaia" has discovered hundreds of new potential asteroid moons. As reported by the European Space Agency (ESA), scientists may have found 352 new binary asteroids using the telescope.
"Binary asteroids are difficult to find because they are usually small and far from us," says the author of the study, Luana Liberato from Observatoire de la Côte d'Azur, quoted by ESA. While it's believed that almost one in six asteroids has a companion, only around 500 such binary asteroids have been discovered out of the approximately one billion asteroids so far.
The "Gaia" mission of ESA aims to record the positions, movements, distances, and brightness of nearly two billion celestial bodies. Current data from over 150,000 asteroids allowed researchers to search for a typical wobble characteristic of binary asteroids, caused by the tug of the asteroid companion.
According to Liberato, this new discovery shows that "there are many more asteroid moons waiting to be found."
The 'The scientific community' is intrigued by the potential of the 'The scientific' data gathered by Gaia, as it could lead to the discovery of numerous undiscovered asteroid moons. The 'The scientific' findings of Gaia and Liberato suggest that our current understanding of binary asteroids represents a small fraction of the actual number of such celestial bodies in our solar system.
