Astronomers Discover Hundreds of Asteroid Moons Hiding in Our Solar System

Amaze Lab

Gaia’s mission is a complicated one. It’s attempting to chart every star in our galaxy, which could num0ber upwards of 400 billion. However, more recently it turned its instruments inward looking for asteroids and boy did it find some.

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00:00Gaia's mission is a complicated one.

00:06It's attempting to chart every star in our galaxy, which could number upwards of 400

00:11billion.

00:12However, more recently, it turned its instruments inward, looking for asteroids, and boy did

00:16it find some.

00:18It's now being reported that the Gaia mission has identified some 352 additional asteroids

00:23whipping around our solar system.

00:25But these asteroids weren't just simple rocks that were previously undetected.

00:29According to their recently released findings, these are asteroid moons, meaning they are

00:33asteroids circling other asteroids, making them binary pairs.

00:37That means that the 352 newly minted asteroid moons nearly doubles the number of previously

00:42discovered pairs.

00:44The researchers say that binary pairs are hard to spot, as they're not only small but

00:48also far away.

00:49Experts predict that one-sixth of all asteroids should have a pair, but so far they've only

00:54been able to identify a few hundred of them amongst the million known.

00:57And the researchers adding that this most recent find shows that there are many more

01:01asteroid moons out there just waiting to be found.

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