Contact Binary Plus Moonlet
Hektor is one of the most elongated bodies of its size in the Solar System, being 370 × 200 km. It is thought that Hektor might be a contact binary (two asteroids joined by gravitational attraction) like 216 Kleopatra. Hubble Space Telescope observations of Hektor in 1993 did not show an obvious bilobate shape because of a limited angular resolution. On 17 July 2006, the Keck-10m II telescope and its Laser guide star Adaptive Optics (AO) system indicated a bilobate shape for Hektor. Additionally, a 15-km moonlet at 1000 km of Hektor was detected. The satellite's provisional designation is S/2006 (624) 1. Hektor is, so far, the only known binary trojan asteroid in the L4 point and the first trojan with a satellite companion. 617 Patroclus, another large trojan asteroid located in the L5, is composed of two same-sized components.
Read more about this topic: 624 Hektor
Famous quotes containing the word contact:
“It is only when men lose their contact with this eternal life-flame, and become merely personal, things in themselves, instead of things kindled in the flame, that the fight between man and woman begins.”
—D.H. (David Herbert)