Astronomers have found 3 bodies orbiting Elektra, making it the 1st quadruple asteroid system. They previously knew of the outer 2 moons (shown in orange and green orbits). The fainter, inner body (in blue) is the newly discovered 4th body.
(ESO)
If you have been under the impression that planets are the only cosmic bodies that have moons, here’s some news for you: they’re not. It is, in fact, quite common for even asteroids to have moons, with some space-rocks even possessing more than one!
One prime example of such a system is the asteroid Didymos and its moonlet Dimorphos, which also happen to be the targets for NASA’s DART mission. Such structures aren’t uncommon in our cosmic neighbourhood; even (130) Elektra from the main asteroid belt — located approximately 179.5 million kilometres away from Earth — was thought to be a similar system, with the existence of two of its…
