Anasteroid pair, or (if more than two bodies) anasteroid cluster, areasteroids which at some point in the past had very small relative velocities, and are typically formed either by a collisional break-up of aparent body, or frombinary asteroids which became gravitationally unbound and are now following similar but different orbits around the Sun.[1]
A possible example of a pair are theTrojan asteroids1583 Antilochus and3801 Thrasymedes. The proposer of that pair,Andrea Milani, found five other potential asteroid clusters in theGreek camp, clustered around the asteroids1437 Diomedes,1647 Menelaus,2456 Palamedes,2797 Teucer and4035 Thestor.[2]
The youngest asteroid pairs discovered as of 2022[update] include the main-belt asteroidsP/2016 J1-A/B (separated c. 2010) and(458271) 2010 UM26/2010 RN221 (separated c. 2003).[3][4] The former pair is particularly remarkable for exhibitingcomet-like activity due to water ice sublimation and rotational break-up.[3]
| Main | |||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Distribution |
| ||||||||
| Classification |
| ||||||||
| Exploration | |||||||||
| Lists | |||||||||
| Related | |||||||||
