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The asteroid Kleopatra was first seen as a bright dot in the asteroid belt in 1880, but only in 2000 was it found to have a highly elongated, dogbone shape. UC Berkeley and French astronomers have now found two moons orbiting the asteroid, newly named Alexhelios and Cleoselene after the twins of Queen Cleopatra VII and Mark Antony.
Tag: asteroid
New evidence that asteroid, not comet, struck Jupiter in 2009
January 26, 2011:
Infrared images of the aftermath of an impact on Jupiter in 2009 have been combined with other observations to conclude that an asteroid, not a comet, slammed into the planet.
Sunlight spawns many binary and “divorced” binary asteroids
August 25, 2010:
Asteroids that are slightly out of round can start spinning because of impinging sunlight. A new study by Czech astronomers and their international colleagues, including UC Berkeley’s Franck Marchis, suggests that over millions of years, these asteroids may spin fast enough to fission into a binary asteroid system. The two bound asteroids eventually move far apart to become independent asteroids, or a “divorced” binary.
