First Asteroid Trio Discovered Robert Roy Britt
Senior Science Writer
SPACE.com
Wed Aug 10, 2:00 PM ET
An asteroid known to astronomers for more than a century has now been found to harbor two small satellites.
It is the first asteroid trio ever discovered.
And there may be more than three.
The main asteroid, named 87 Sylvia, is one of the largest known to orbit the Sun in the main asteroid belt, between Mars and Jupiter. It is potato-shaped, about 175 miles (280 kilometers) in diameter and 235 miles (380 kilometers) long. It was discovered in 1866.
The first moon was found four years ago and the second one was announced today.
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Asteroid 87 Sylvia was named for Rhea Sylvia, the mythical mother of the founders of Rome. Now its moons will be called
Romulus and Remus, for the ancient city's founders.
Romulus is some 11.3 miles (18 kilometers) across and orbits the main asteroid every 87.6 hours. Remus, the newfound object, is about 4.4 miles (7 kilometers) wide and orbits Sylvia every 33 hours.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/space/20050810/sc_space/firstasteroidtriodiscovered