A strange binary asteroid shows the upheaval of the early solar system

A strange pair of space rocks circling one around the other orbiting the sun has helped scientists determine when our solar system has developed its current formation.

This is according to new research on Patroclus and Menoetius, a strangely large binary asteroid that pursues Jupiter. It's in one of two special groups of dozens of space rocks, one in front of Jupiter and the other behind the gas giant, which scientists call Trojans. .

"The Trojans were probably captured during a dramatic period of dynamic instability when a skirmish between the giant planets of the solar system – Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus and Neptune – occurred," said David Nesvorny, lead author of this study. Texas Research Institute, said in a statement released by the facility.

As Uranus and Neptune were pushed further away from the sun, they ran into what later became the Kuiper Belt that rings our planetary neighbors. In the process, they threw some of these objects inward, where they remained stuck like Trojan asteroids.

But the binary asteroids come with a kind of timestamp: they were easier to train at the beginning of the solar system's history, when there were more pieces of rocks flying around the place. Thus, the scientists behind this new research used models to study how a large binary asteroid such as Patroclus-Menoetius could have snuck into Trojan groups.

These models suggest that their trip must have taken place about 100 million years after the formation of the solar system, much earlier than previous estimates. Otherwise, it is likely that the pair would have been broken due to interactions with other space rocks before they could migrate to Jupiter.

If this early reshuffle date holds, it could have implications closer to home, write the authors. This would mean that the objects that were projected during the late heavy bombardment period, about 400 to 700 million years after the formation of the solar system, would have come from the internal solar system. Their scars are still visible, especially on the surface of the moon and Mars.

The research is described in an article published yesterday (September 10th) in the journal Nature Astronomy.

Scientists interested in the couple Patroclus-Menoetius hope that these strange rocks hide many more secrets – and they build a NASA spacecraft called Lucy, which should be launched in 2021, to visit a handful of asteroids, including the pair.

Email Meghan Bartels at [email protected] or follow her @meghanbartels. follow us @Spacedotcom, Facebook and Google+. Original article on Space.com.