The European Space Agency's (ESA) Gaia space telescope has already proven itself invaluable in tracking billions of stars in the Milky Way, but now it has proved its worth with much smaller bodies, much closer to home.
The Gaia mission has spotted potential moons orbiting over 350 asteroids that were previously predicted to be singletons. Gaia had already been investigating known asteroid binaries, confirming they have companions, but this breakthrough shows the star surveyor is capable of conducting "blind searches" for completely new asteroid-moon partnerships.
