Discovery of a moon orbiting the asteroid 45 Eugenia

W. J. Merline (), L. M. Close, C. Dumas, C. R. Chapman, F. Roddier, F. Ménard, D. C. Slater, G. Duvert, C. Shelton and T. Morgan
Additional contact information
W. J. Merline: Southwest Research Institute
L. M. Close: European Southern Observatory
C. Dumas: Jet Propulsion Laboratory, California Institute of Technology
C. R. Chapman: Southwest Research Institute
F. Roddier: Institute for Astronomy, University of Hawaii
F. Ménard: Canada-France-Hawaii Telescope Corporation
D. C. Slater: Southwest Research Institute
G. Duvert: Laboratoire d'Astrophysique de Grenoble
C. Shelton: W. M. Keck Observatory
T. Morgan: NASA Headquarters

Nature, 1999, vol. 401, issue 6753, 565-568

Abstract: Abstract Evidence for asteroidal satellites (moons) has been sought for decades, because the relative frequency of such satellites will bear on the collisional history of the asteroid belt and the Solar System, yet only one has been detected unambiguously1,2,3. Here we report the discovery of a satellite of the asteroid 45 Eugenia, using an adaptive optics system on a ground-based telescope. The satellite has a diameter of about 13 km, and an orbital period of about 4.7 days with a separation of 1,190 km from Eugenia. Using a previously determined4 diameter for Eugenia, we estimate that its bulk density is about 1.2 g cm-3, which is similar to that of the C-type asteroid Mathilde5,6. This implies that Eugenia, also a low-albedo C-type asteroid, may be a rubble pile, or composed of primitive, icy materials of low bulk density.

Date: 1999
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DOI: 10.1038/44089

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