14-February-2008, 04:50 AM
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Order of Kilopi
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Join Date: Mar 2004
Posts: 13,451
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Triple Asteroid, Near-Earth
Planetary Society Weblog: Triple near-Earth asteroid discovered
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Astronomers using the soon-to-be-closed(?) Arecibo observatory announced today the discovery of the first near-Earth object known to be a triple system. Asteroid 153591 (2001 SN263) was first discovered as a mote of light by the LINEAR project on September 19, 2001. Asteroid 153591 (2001 SN263) is now on a relatively close pass by Earth; it'll approach within 10 million kilometers on February 20. [...] Arecibo is routinely used to study the shapes and sizes of near-Earth asteroids on close approaches to Earth, and Arecibo radar images of such asteroids have yielded the discoveries of numerous binaries among the near-Earth asteroid population. But this is the first time it's turned up a triple system. The three bodies are 2, 1, and 0.4 kilometers across -- really quite remarkably similar in size. It's hard for me to imagine how such a system would be stable, unless one of the components orbits the others at quite a great distance.
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