The least dense asteroids had densities around 1.3 grams per cubic centimeter, around the same density as coal, suggesting a carbonaceous, porous composition. Once again, there was a wide range in the sample.Įarth's density, for context, is 5.51 grams per cubic centimeter.
Once you know the volume and the mass of an object, you can calculate its density, and infer its composition. The new 3D data gave the researchers much better constraints on the volumes of the 42 objects, too.
Flora and Adeona, at 146 and 144 kilometers respectively, are also pretty round. Vesta, the second-largest at 520 kilometers, has a more uneven shape. Ceres, the largest object probed in the survey with a diameter of 940 kilometers (584 miles), is pretty round. Interestingly, these categories are not divided along size lines. Broadly, the objects fall into two categories: those that are nearly round and those that are more elongated, with Kleopatra being the most extreme example of the latter. The new work is much more sweeping, designed to examine the collective properties of these objects, rather than their individual characteristics, with new 3D data that help to reveal the shape and mass of these mysterious asteroids. The data revealed that Kleopatra's two moons may have formed from dust ejected by the asteroid itself. Last month, researchers revealed the best images to date of a peculiar, dog-bone-shaped asteroid named Kleopatra. We've already had a sneak preview of the images. Kornmesser/Vernazza et al./MISTRAL algorithm/ONERA/CNRS) "Our ESO observations have provided sharp images for many more targets, 42 in total." "Only three large main belt asteroids, Ceres, Vesta and Lutetia, have been imaged with a high level of detail so far, as they were visited by the space missions Dawn and Rosetta of NASA and the European Space Agency, respectively," said astronomer Pierre Vernazza of the Laboratoire d'Astrophysique de Marseille in France.
An international team of astronomers has used the European Southern Observatory's Very Large Telescope to image 42 of the largest objects that hang out in the asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter. But we're getting better at it, and now we've gotten the most detailed look yet at some of the biggest rocks in the Solar System that aren't planets.
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