2024-08-08 Gaia spots possible moons around hundreds of asteroids

ESA’s star-surveying Gaia mission has again proven to be a formidable asteroid explorer, spotting potential moons around more than 350 asteroids not known to have a companion. Previously, Gaia had explored asteroids known to have moons — so-called ‘binary asteroids’ — and confirmed that the telltale signs of these tiny moons show up in the telescope’s ultra-accurate astrometric data. But this new finding proves that Gaia can conduct ‘blind’ searches to discover completely new candidates, too. Full story on esa.int/gaia: https://www.esa.int/Science_Exploration/Space_Science/Gaia/Gaia_spots_possible_moons_around_hundreds_of_asteroids.