This dog bone-shaped asteroid is an apparent leftover from an ancient, violent cosmic collision. Kleopatra is one of several dozen asteroids whose coloring suggests they contain metal.
A team of astronomers observing Kleopatra used the 305-meter (1,000-foot) telescope of the Arecibo Observatory in Puerto Rico to bounce encoded radio signals off Kleopatra. Using sophisticated computer analysis techniques, they decoded the echoes, transformed them into images, and assembled a computer model of the asteroid's shape.
The images were obtained when Kleopatra was about 171 million kilometers (106 million miles) from Earth. This model is accurate to within about 15 kilometers (9 miles).
The Arecibo Observatory is part of the National Astronomy and Ionosphere Center, operated by Cornell University, Ithaca, N.Y., for the National Science Foundation. The Kleopatra radar observations were supported by NASA's Office of Space Science, Washington, DC. JPL is managed for NASA by the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena.
Voir l'image PIA02454: Radar Model of Asteroid 216 Kleopatra sur le site de la NASA.