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If the findings are confirmed, Gaia has found 352 more asteroids with moons to the current tally, nearly doubling the number of known ‘binary asteroids’.
The European Space Agency’s star-surveying Gaia mission has been exploring distant asteroids and may have found previously undetected moons around hundreds of these space rocks.
The latest study is building upon something we already know: that Gaia is able to explore asteroids known to have moons – called ‘binary asteroids’ – and have the telltale signs of these tiny moons show up in the telescope’s astrometric data.
But this new finding proves that Gaia can conduct ‘blind’ searches to discover completely new candidates, too. If the findings are confirmed, it would mean Gaia has added 352 more binary candidates to our tally, nearly doubling the known number of asteroids with moons.
“Binary asteroids are difficult to find as they are mostly so small and far away from us,” said Dr Luana Liberato, lead author of the study. “Despite us expecting just under one-sixth of asteroids to have a companion, so far we have only found 500 of the 1bn known asteroids to be in binary systems.
“But this discovery shows that there are many asteroid moons out there just waiting to be found.”
Thanks to its unique all-sky scanning capabilities, Gaia was able to precisely pinpoint the positions and motions of more than 150,000 asteroids in its third data release. The researchers were able to use this data to hunt for asteroids displaying the characteristic ‘wobble’ caused by the tug of an orbiting companion.
“Gaia has proven to be an outstanding asteroid explorer, and is hard at work revealing the secrets of the cosmos both within and beyond the solar system,” said Dr Timo Prusti, project scientist for Gaia. “This finding highlights how each Gaia data release is a major step up in data quality, and demonstrates the amazing new science made possible by the mission.”
The various asteroid orbits determined in Gaia’s third data release were refined and made 20 times more precise as part of the mission’s Focused Product Release last year. Even more asteroid orbits are anticipated as part of Gaia’s fourth data release, which isn’t expected to be released until at least the middle of 2026.
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