The most aggressive asteroid in the solar system

Pallas has countless giant craters on the surface due to collisions with other planets, causing it to warp like low-resolution golf balls.

Pallas with a diameter of 512km is the third largest asteroid in the asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter, accounting for about 7% of the total volume of the region. When Pallas was discovered in 1802 by the German astronomer Heinrich Wilhelm Matthäus Olbers, it was only the second asteroid ever found. Initially, Pallas was classified as a separate planet.

Scientists say that Pallas has a strange path in space. It plunges in and out of the main orbital belt as it follows a path around the Sun, which is also much deviated from the orbits of other asteroids. Pallas can fly north and south, above and below the Earth's orbit, or fly around the sun. Notably, Pallas has many small objects flying by.

Two angles of Pallas show that the surface has countless craters due to collision.(Photo: Massachusetts Institute of Technology).

Astronomer Michaël Marsset works at the Earth Science Laboratory at Massachusetts Institute of Technology (USA), the lead author of an article describing the images: "From these images, we have It can be said that Pallas is the most dangerous object in the asteroid belt. " The asteroids in this belt move very fast, they also tend to have very similar orbits. When these space rocks collide, collisions can be catastrophic, creating giant craters.

It is like driving a truck at nearly 130 km / h on the highway and then hitting another vehicle that is also traveling at 132 km / h. This collision will cause some damage but if two drivers still hold the steering wheel to control their vehicle, the consequences will be minimized. Like that, objects in the asteroid belt often have many craters due to collisions. Pallas has countless giant craters.

When Pallas passed an area, it was like a cargo train rushing on a freeway at a high speed, colliding and exploding other cars into pieces of steel and plastic. It then continues to move on its crazy trajectory and is unimpeded by its huge momentum. This process has been going on for billions of years, appearing twice every time Pallas orbits the Sun. The result is a warping asteroid that looks like a low-resolution golf ball.

Pallas has experienced two to three times more collisions than Ceres and Vesta, the two largest objects in the asteroid belt."Its inclined orbit is a simple explanation for the very strange surface we don't see on either of those asteroids," Marsset said.

SPHERE images at the Very Large Telescope in Chile show that Pallas has at least 36 holes with a diameter of over 30 km and a width of 400 km. The impact crater on the asteroid's equator may be due to a collision with an object 40 km wide. Pallas also has a bright spot on its southern hemisphere that researchers suspect could be a large salt mine.

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