Triple asteroid 1994 CC
Filed under pretty pictures, animation, radar imaging, asteroids, near-Earth asteroids, radio telescopes
The Arecibo radio telescope captured numerous Doppler-delay radar images of triple asteroid 1994 CC over 77 minutes on June 12, 2009. Doppler-delay images plot Doppler shift on the horizontal axis and distance from the telescope on the vertical axis. The image shows three components of 1994 CC, one large one about 700 meters in diameter, and two much smaller ones about 50 meters in diameter. The relatively fast rotation of the larger body spreads it out in the horizontal direction; the other two are probably locked into synchronous rotation with the large body, so rotate much more slowly. You can actually see features on the large body rotate into and out of view with the body's counterclockwise rotation. This version of the image has been blurred to counteract the distracting effect of noise. The original image can be downloaded here."
NASA / JPL / GSSR / Emily Lakdawalla
Copyright holder: Emily Lakdawalla

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.
Contact us to request publication permission from the copyright holder. Original image data dated on or about June 12, 2009










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