1st known quadruple asteroid
On February 14, 2022, the European Southern Observatory (ESO) announced the existence of the first asteroid known to have three companions. Elektra, which lies in the main asteroid belt, already had two moons that we knew of. But a team of astronomers found an even fainter inner moon circling the asteroid. This is the first quadruple asteroid on record.
Anthony Berdeu of the National Astronomical Research Institute of Thailand led the team that discovered the newest moonlet of Elektra. They searched ESO science archive data and used a new processing technique to make the discovery. The moonlet, which currently goes by the name of S/2014 (130) 2, is a bit less than 217 miles (350 km) from Elektra. It’s also 15,000 times fainter than its parent body.
Berdeu and team published their study on November 9, 2021, in the peer-reviewed journal Astronomy and Astrophysics.
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Asteroids with moonlets
Ida was the first asteroid that astronomers discovered had a moon. When NASA’s Galileo spacecraft flew by in 1993, it took images of Ida. Galileo team member Ann Harch discovered the moonlet – now named Dactyl – in the imaging data in 1994.
Sylvia was the first triple asteroid system detected. In 2013, backyard astronomers helped take measurements of this triple system as it passed in front of a more distant star. The observations helped narrow down the positions and sizes of Sylvia and its moonlets.
More recently, asteroid Florence passed 18 times the Earth-moon distance from us in 2017. As it swept by, astronomers used radar to find two small moons circling Florence.
Bottom line: Astronomers have found the first quadruple asteroid system. They found that Elektra, a main belt asteroid known to have two moons, has an additional moonlet in a close orbit.
Source: First observation of a quadruple asteroid
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