The European Space Agency’s Gaia space telescope has made a groundbreaking discovery by spotting potential moons orbiting over 350 asteroids. This discovery has the potential to almost double the number of known binary asteroid systems in our solar system. The leader of the team behind this discovery, Luana Liberato, mentioned that binary asteroids are challenging to find due to their small size and distance from Earth. However, this finding indicates that there are likely many more asteroid moons waiting to be found.
Asteroids are remnants of the material that formed the sun and the planets billions of years ago. By studying asteroids, astronomers can gain insights into the early solar system and potentially uncover information about the delivery of water and organic molecules to Earth. Binary asteroids, in particular, can provide valuable information about collisions between rocky bodies in the early solar system.
The Gaia space telescope has been instrumental in studying asteroids since 2013, and its recent Data Release 3 has provided precise orbit determinations for over 156,000 asteroids. This high-quality data has allowed researchers to observe subtle changes in asteroid orbits that indicate the presence of hidden moon companions.
The upcoming Data Release 4 from Gaia, scheduled for mid-2026, is expected to contain even more asteroid orbit data, leading to the discovery of additional asteroid-moon partnerships. Additionally, the European Space Agency’s Hera mission, set to launch in October, will investigate the asteroid Didymos and its moon Dimorphos. Dimorphos was the target of NASA’s Double Asteroid Redirection Test in 2022, which aimed to test the viability of using a kinetic impact to deflect an asteroid from a collision course with Earth.
Overall, the discovery of moons around asteroids by the Gaia telescope opens up new possibilities for understanding the formation and evolution of our solar system. With further research and exploration, scientists hope to uncover more secrets about the early history of our planetary system and potentially improve planetary defense efforts in the future.
