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An asteroid discovered last year is actually made up of two objects, each of about 900 meters and orbiting each other, revealed new sightings by three of the largest radio telescopes in the world
provided by the Morocco Oukaimeden Sky Survey in December last year, but no details on the physical properties of the asteroid were known until the end of June, NASA said in a statement.
This is only the fourth binary asteroid close to the Earth "equal mbad" never detected, consisting of two objects of almost identical size, orbiting each other.
The new observations provide the most detailed images ever obtained of this type of binary asteroid, according to the US Space Agency.
On June 21, the 2017 YE5 asteroid made its approach closest to Earth for at least the next 170 years, arriving six million kilometers from the Earth, about 16 times the distance between the Earth and the Moon
On 21 and 22 June, observations of NASA's Goldstone Solar System Radar (GSSR) in California showed early signs that 2017 YE5 could be a binary system
. but the orientation of the asteroid was such that scientists could not see if the two bodies were separated or joined.
Finally, the two objects turned to expose a separate gap between them.
Scientists at the Arecibo Observatory in Puerto Rico have teamed up with researchers at the Green Bank Observatory (GBO) in West Virginia to confirm that 2017 YE5 is made up of two separate objects
New observations obtained between June 21st and June 26th indicate that the two objects are spinning around each other. 20 to 24 hours
The radar imaging shows that the two objects are larger than their combined optical brightness initially suggested, indicating that the two rocks do not reflect as much sunlight as an asteroid typical rocky. Goldstone's images taken on June 21 also show a striking difference in the radar reflectivity of the two objects, a phenomenon that has not been observed before among more than 50 other binary asteroid systems studied.
The reflectivity differences also appear in the Arecibo images and suggest that the two objects may have different densities, compositions close to their surfaces, or different surface asperities
. over 200 meters, about 15 percent are binaries with a larger object and a much smaller satellite. Equal mbad binaries like 2017 YE5 are much rarer.
(This story was not edited by Business Standard staff and is generated automatically from a syndicated feed.)
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