Saturday, August 8, 2009

New radar image of rare triple asteroid system

A new triple asteroid system was discovered by Marina Brozovic and Lance Benner (JPL) via radar imaging; see this press release for details. Shown here are two small ~50m satellites orbiting a larger 700m asteroid named 1994 CC. Although other triple asteroid systems are known, most are in the main asteroid belt that lies between Mars and Jupiter. However, this is only the second triple asteroid system to have been detected among the near-Earth asteroid population.

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