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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, said NASA in a statement
This is only the fourth binary "equal mbad" near the Earth. an asteroid never detected, consisting of two objects of almost identical size, orbiting one with respect to the other
The observations revealed two distinct lobes, but the orientation of the The asteroid was such that scientists could not see if the two bodies were separate. Eventually, the two objects rotated to expose a separate space between them.
New observations obtained between June 21 and June 26 indicate that the two objects rotate one around the other every 20 to 24 hours
. two objects are larger than their originally suggested combined optical brightness, indicating that the two rocks do not reflect as much sunlight as a typical rock asteroid. According to NASA, scientists estimate that among the asteroids close to Earth more than 200 meters, about 15% are binaries with a larger object and a much smaller satellite. Equal-mbad binaries like 2017 YE5 are much rarer.PTI
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