Hektor is thought to be one of the most elongated bodies in the solar system, being 370 × 195 km. Although its shape has never been imaged clearly, it may look something like 216 Kleopatra, or it may be two separate bodies orbiting very close together. It is a D-type asteroid, dark and reddish in colour.
Hektor lies in Jupiter's leading Lagrangian point, L4, called the 'Greek' node after one of the two sides in the legendary Trojan War. Ironically, Hektor is named after the Trojan hero Hektor, and is thus one of two Trojan asteroids that is "misplaced" in the wrong camp (the other being 617 Patroclus in the Trojan node).
Hektor is thought to be one of the most elongated bodies in the solar system, being 370 × 195 km.
It is a D-type asteroid, dark and reddish in colour.
Ironically, Hektor is named after the Trojan hero Hektor, and is thus one of two Trojan asteroids that is "misplaced" in the wrong camp (the other being 617 Patroclus in the Trojan node).
It had been thought that Hektor may be a contact binary (two asteroids that have become fused by gravitational attraction) like 216 Kleopatra, or else two two separate bodies orbiting very close together.
However, Hektor was observed by the Hubble Space Telescope in 1993, and it does not have the bilobated appearance of a contact binary.[1]
Hektor is a D-type asteroid, dark and reddish in colour.
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