Astronomers spot 1st trilobate asteroid between Mars and Jupiter Nysa
Astronomers just found something pretty wild: the asteroid (44) Nysa has a three-headed shape.
Using powerful telescopes in Chile and Arizona, they spotted this unusual structure on the space rock hanging out between Mars and Jupiter.
It's the first trilobate asteroid ever seen, and it gives us a fresh look at how weird and wonderful our solar system can be.
Nysa 3-lobed with 0.97km moon
Nysa isn't your average asteroid: it has three connected lobes with two skinny necks joining them together, stretching about 76km in circumference.
And that's not all: scientists also discovered a tiny moon orbiting Nysa, just 0.97km across.
As Kate Minker from Lowell Observatory put it, Nysa is "remarkably unusual," and studying it could help us understand how planets like Earth were formed.