Unique Data Collected on Double Asteroid Antiope2007-05-07 14:26:00
Combining precise observations obtained by ESO's Very Large Telescope with those gathered by a network of smaller telescopes, astronomers have described in unprecedented detail the double asteroid Antiope, which is shown to be a pair of rubble-pile chunks of material, of about the same size, whirling around one another in a perpetual pas de deux. The two components are egg-shaped despite their very small sizes. The asteroid (90) Antiope was discovered in 1866 by Robert Luther from Dusseldorf, Germany. The 90th asteroid ever discovered, its name comes from Greek mythology. In 2000, William Merline and his collaborators found that the asteroid was composed of two similarly-sized components, making it a truly 'double' asteroid, one of the very first of this kind in the main belt of asteroids that lies between the orbits of Mars and Jupiter. "The way double asteroids have formed in the main belt is still unclear," says Pascal Descamps, from the Paris Observatory and lead-author of the pape
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