Some asteroids travel through space with moons for company, such as a dual asteroid system is aimed at NASA with its DART mission. For the first time, a researcher discovered an asteroid with not one and not two, but three the moon.
It was already known that the asteroid (130) Elektra has two moons, but the third was hidden in data collected by the Very Large Telescope of the European Southern Observatory in Chile. Anthony Berdeu of the National Institute of Astronomical Research in Thailand has developed a new data processing algorithm and is using it to take a fresh look at Elektra’s 2014 observations.
Berdeu’s work confirmed the two previously known moons and allowed the weaker third moon to pop out, no longer hidden by the brightness of the main asteroid. Berdeu is the lead author of a study published in the journal Astronomy & Astrophysics last week with the triumphant headline “First Observation of a Quadruple Asteroid.”
Electra is located in the main asteroid belt of the solar system between Mars and Jupiter, and its unusual nature has attracted some scientific attention. The little moon orbits its parent every 16.3 hours. “The discovery will help astronomers understand how these satellites form and in turn provide important information about the formation of planets and the evolution of our own solar system,” the European Southern Observatory said in a statement Monday.
The asteroid system Elektra may be the first of its kind to be discovered, but there are probably more out there. Berdeu’s data analysis method could be applied to other suspects and a treasure hunt could begin for other fours hiding in archival telescopic data.