Astronomers Discover the Quadruple Asteroid System For The First Time, What Does It Mean?

Writer: Arif Budianto

KONTAN.CO.ID – Jakarta. For the first time astronomers have discovered a quadruple asteroid system, what does that mean? True to its name, quadruple means multiple of four. So the asteroid system has four adjacent asteroids.

Astronomers recently reported their latest findings relating to the asteroid system. Quoted from Earthskyon February 14, 2022 European Southern Observatory (ESO) announced the existence of the first asteroid known to have three companions. This is then referred to as the quadruple asteroid system because there are four asteroids side by side.

Elektra, this asteroid is located in the main asteroid belt, which is known to have two companion moons. What is meant by the moon here is the object that surrounds the asteroid.

And these objects are also known asteroids named S/2014 (130) and S/2003 (130) which have been previously discovered. Interestingly, the new findings reveal that there is still another month of fainter sight orbiting Elektra.

Astronomers later said that this discovery was the first recorded quadruple asteroid.

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Anthony Berdeu from National Astronomical Research Institute of Thailand who led the research team. They searched ESO’s science archive data and used new processing techniques to make these new findings.

Moonlet which is currently named S/2014 (130) 2, a little less than 217 miles (350 km) from Elektra. It is also 15,000 times fainter than its parent body.

Berdeu and his team’s research was published on November 9, 2021 in the journal Astronomy and Astrophysics.

Although this is the first quadruple asteroid system, it turns out that Elektra is not the only one surrounded by other asteroids.

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Ida was the first asteroid that astronomers discovered had a moon. The asteroid was discovered when NASA’s Galileo spacecraft flew in 1993.

The plane took managed to take a portrait of Ida. A member of Galileo’s team, Ann Harch, discovered moonlet which is now named Dactyl in the imaging data in 1994.

Then there’s Sylvia, this is a triple asteroid system detected in 2013. In addition, the asteroid Florence, which passed Earth 18 times the Earth-Moon distance in 2017, also has two small moons orbiting it.