ESA’s Gaia Mission Discovers 352 New Binary Asteroid Candidates

https://www.sci.news/astronomy/gaia-binary-asteroids-13167.html

The ESA’s Gaia mission has made an exciting discovery: 352 new binary asteroid candidates. Binary asteroids are pairs where one asteroid orbits another, and finding them is crucial for understanding the formation and evolution of the Solar System. Gaia’s precise data allowed scientists to detect the subtle “wobble” caused by an orbiting companion, nearly doubling the known number of binary asteroids. This discovery is part of Gaia’s broader mission, which has already pinpointed the positions and motions of over 150,000 asteroids and compiled the largest collection of asteroid reflectance spectra. As Gaia continues to deliver more refined data, even more asteroid discoveries are expected.