Elektra: A New Triple Asteroid

[Rick]

Elektra: A New Triple Asteroid

Astronomers have discovered a new satellite orbiting the main belt asteroid (130) Elektra. The team, led by Bin Yang (ESO, Santiago, Chile), imaged it using the extreme adaptive optics instrument, SPHERE, installed on the Unit Telescope 3 of ESO's Very Large Telescope at Cerro Paranal, Chile. This new, second moonlet of (130) Elektra is about 2 kilometres across and has been provisionally named S/2014 (130) 1, making (130) Elektra a triple system. Exploiting the unprecedented sensitivity and spatial resolution of the instrument SPHERE, the team also observed another triple asteroid system in the main belt, (93) Minerva.

More: https://www.eso.org/public/images/potw1617a/