Marchis & F.
After 8 years of observations, scientists from the SETI Institute have found an exotic orbit for the largest Trojan asteroid, (624) Hektor—the only one known to possess a moon.
This work sheds light on the complex youth of our solar system, when the building blocks that formed the core of Giant planets and their satellites were tossed around or captured during the giant planet migrations.
In 2006, a small team of astronomers led by Franck Marchis, astronomer at the Carl Sagan center of the SETI Institute, detected the presence of a small 12 km diameter moon around the large Trojan asteroid (624) Hektor using the 10 m Keck II telescope atop Mauna Kea, fitted with the NIRC-2 (Near-Infrared Camera 2) instrument behind the adaptive optics and laser guide star system (LGS-AO).
http://phy.so/312730524
After 8 years of observations, scientists from the SETI Institute have found an exotic orbit for the largest Trojan asteroid, (624) Hektor—the only one known to possess a moon.
This work sheds light on the complex youth of our solar system, when the building blocks that formed the core of Giant planets and their satellites were tossed around or captured during the giant planet migrations.
In 2006, a small team of astronomers led by Franck Marchis, astronomer at the Carl Sagan center of the SETI Institute, detected the presence of a small 12 km diameter moon around the large Trojan asteroid (624) Hektor using the 10 m Keck II telescope atop Mauna Kea, fitted with the NIRC-2 (Near-Infrared Camera 2) instrument behind the adaptive optics and laser guide star system (LGS-AO).
http://phy.so/312730524
