SIOS Lab Contributes to Dinkinesh-Selam Formation Study

SIOS Lab graduate student, Colby Merrill, contributed to work that models the formation scenario of Dinkinesh’s strange satellite, Selam! The contact binary shape of Selam is likely a result of smaller moonlets merging at speeds near their escape velocities. This multi-moonlet formation scenario also has implications for binary asteroid satellites in general, and sheds light on the poorly constrained shapes of asteroid moons. The paper detailing these results, Multiple moonlet mergers as the origin of the Dinkinesh-Selam system, was published in Nature Communications on December 11.