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Science 29 February 1980:
Vol. 207. no. 4434, pp. 976 - 977
DOI: 10.1126/science.207.4434.976
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Articles

Hektor: The Largest Highly Elongated Asteroid

WILLIAM K. HARTMANN 1 and DALE P. CRUIKSHANK 2

1 Planetary Science Institute, Tucson, Arizona 85719
2 Institute for Astronomy, University of Hawaii, Honolulu 96822

New observations of Trojan asteroid 624, Hektor, in April 1979 establish that the high amplitude of the rotational light curve of this object is caused by its elongated shape and not by patches of dark and light albedo on opposing hemispheres. These observations confirm that Hektor is a very unusual object and are consistent with the hypothesis that it may be a compound asteroid formed when two Trojans of comparable size fell together—a rare fossilized example of a planetary accretion process.

Submitted on November 16, 1979


THIS ARTICLE HAS BEEN CITED BY OTHER ARTICLES:
1998 SM165: A large Kuiper belt object with an irregular shape.
W. Romanishin, S. C. Tegler, T. W. Rettig, G. Consolmagno, and B. Botthof (2001)
PNAS 98, 11863-11866
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Science. ISSN 0036-8075 (print), 1095-9203 (online)