Trojan asteroid Patroclus and its companion Menoetius: Comets in disguise?

Extrait du Observatoire de Paris centre de recherche et enseignement en astronomie etastrophysique relevant du Ministère de l'Enseignement supérieur et de la Recherche.https://obspm.fr/trojan-asteroid-patroclus-and-its-companion.html

Trojan asteroid Patroclus and

its companion Menoetius:

Comets in disguise?

Date de mise en ligne : Wednesday 1 February 2006

Observatoire de Paris centre de recherche et enseignement en astronomie et

astrophysique relevant du Ministère de l'Enseignement supérieur et de la

Recherche.

Copyright © Observatoire de Paris centre de recherche et enseignement en astronomie et astrophysique relevant du Ministère de l'Enseignement supérieur et de la Recherche.Page 1/2

Trojan asteroid Patroclus and its companion Menoetius: Comets in disguise?

A French-American team composed of researchers of Institut de mécanique céleste(Observatoire de Paris, France), University of California, Berkeley (USA) and W. M. Keckobservatory (Hawaii, USA) announce in the February 2, 2006 issue of Nature thedetermination of a very low density for the binary system 617 Patroclus-Menoetius.Determining the orbit of the binary system, made of two components of 112 km and 122kilometer in diameter, gives the opportunity to estimate for the first time the mass and thedensity of a Jupiter-trojan asteroid. The surprising low density, approximately 0.8 g/cm3,had never been measured for asteroids located at such distance from the Sun (5.2astronomical units, approximately 780 million kilometers). This result suggests that the twocompanions have a composition close to that of comets and then should come from the outerpart of the solar system.

Know More

• UC-Berkeley• press review W.M. Keck Observatory• press review IMCCE press review

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