During the Gaia mission, 352 asteroids have been observed to have moons orbiting around them.
Asteroids are said to be present in our solar system since its formation. These are rocks that are constantly revolving in the solar system. They also revolve around the sun like the planets of the solar system. But they are not considered planets. There are about 16 thousand asteroids near the Earth. Scientists consider them to be scattered pieces of planets. Space agencies around the world are running missions to study asteroids, including NASA. Now the Gaia Space Telescope of the European Space Agency (ESA) has given such information about asteroids that scientists have become very excited about.
The Gaia Space Telescope of the European Space Agency has brought out interesting information about asteroids. According to Space.com, during the Gaia mission, more than 350 asteroids have been seen revolving around their moons. The interesting thing is that before this these asteroids were considered to be single stones. 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 seen, 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 very 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 another similar new 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 constantly revolving around 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 present in the main asteroid belt that has been seen so closely.
Most of the asteroids found close to 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.