Astronomers may have detected a previously undiscovered 'mini moon' in the Solar System: a rocky object orbiting a small asteroid near Jupiter.
The Lucy probe was launched on 16 October 2021, and will arrive at the Trojan asteroids in late 2027, after making a quick stop in the asteroid belt betweenUntil then, Lucy mission scientists are trying to learn more about some of these mysterious rocks to help identify where the probe can be most useful.
On March 27, the smallest of Lucy's Trojan targets, known as Polymele, passed in front of a distant star, allowing mission scientists to accurately measure the space rock's size by observing how much of the star's light the asteroid blocked out as it whizzed past. However, the team also observed an unexpected subsequent, smaller blip as a second asteroid followed in Polymele's wake.
After reviewing the data, the team concluded that the second blip"had to be a satellite," lead researcher Marc Buie, an astronomer at the Southwest Research Institute in Boulder, Colorado, said in a NASA
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