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Astronomers Report On Strange Double Asteroid


Astronomers Report On Strange Double Asteroid
By Robin Lloyd
space.com

Nov 18 1999 15:48:02 ET

A team of European astronomers claims to have taken an unusual direct
photograph of an object that may be a member of a class of strange space
objects -- asteroid pairs that closely orbit one another.

Asteroid (216) Kleopatra, first discovered in 1880, previously was thought
to be a solo dumbbell-shaped object, but it now appears in infrared images
taken using the European Southern Observatory's 3.6-meter telescope at La
Silla Observatory in Chile to be a pair of bright objects closely circling
one another, separated by a thin space of unknown size.

Franck Marchis, Daniel Hestroffer and their colleagues used adapted optics
on the telescope on Oct. 25 to look directly at Kleopatra, a Main Belt body
with an elongated orbit that passes between Mars and Jupiter. They say the
session showed that Kleopatra is comprised of two similarly sized lobes,
neither of which is small enough to be called a moon.

Full story here:

http://www.space.com/science/astronomy/double_asteroid_991118.html

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