Free Astronomy Magazine January-February 2022

14 JANUARY-FEBRUARY 2022 ASTRO PUBLISHING U sing the European Southern Observatory’s Very Large Tele- scope (ESO’s VLT), a team of astronomers have obtained the sharpest and most detailed images yet of the asteroid Kleopatra. The observations have allowed the team to constrain the 3D shape and mass of this peculiar asteroid, which resembles a dog bone, to a higher accuracy than ever before. Their research provides clues as to how this asteroid and the two moons that orbit it formed. “Kleopatra is truly a unique body in our Solar System,” says Franck Marchis, an astronomer at the SETI VLT captures best images yet of peculiar “dog-bone” asteroid by ESO - Bárbara Ferreira