These twin circular lakes in Quebec, Canada were formed by the impact of an asteroidal pair which slammed into the planet approximately 290 million years ago. (Courtesy NASA)
Posted on 07/10/2008 9:10:10 AM PDT by SunkenCiv
Derek Richardson, of the University of Maryland, his former student Kevin Walsh, now Poincare Fellow in the Planetology Group in the Cassiopee Laboratory of CNRS at the Cote d'Azur Observatory, France, and that group's leader, co-author Patrick Michel outline a model showing that when solar energy "spins up" a "rubble pile" asteroid to a sufficiently fast rate, material is slung off from around the asteroid's equator. This process also exposes fresh material at the poles of the asteroid. If the spun off bits of asteroid rubble shed sufficient excess motion through collisions with each other, then the material coalesces into a satellite that continues to orbit its parent... Recent studies have outlined a thermal process -- known as the YORP effect after the scientists (Yarkovsky, O'Keefe, Radzievskii, Paddack) who identified it -- by which sunlight can speed up or slow down an asteroid's spin... Doublet craters formed by the nearly simultaneous impact of objects of comparable size can be found in a number of places on Earth, suggesting that binary asteroids have hit our planet in the past. Similar doublet craters also can be found on other planets.
(Excerpt) Read more at physorg.com ...
Watch an animated model of the spin-up and binary formation from two views, on the left is an overhead view. The right pane of the movie looks at the equator of the primary body, which is also the plane in which the asteroid's satellite is formed (courtesy of the authors).
These twin circular lakes in Quebec, Canada were formed by the impact of an asteroidal pair which slammed into the planet approximately 290 million years ago. (Courtesy NASA)
Radar Reveals Five Double Asteroid Systems Orbiting Each Other Near Earth
Science Daily | 4-12-2002 | Cornell
Posted on 04/12/2002 6:24:24 AM PDT by blam
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-chat/664669/posts
Hubble Telescope Photographs Seven Objects Traveling In Pairs Beyond Pluto
earthfiles.com | july-11-2002 | by Linda Moulton Howe
Posted on 07/12/2002 2:02:01 PM PDT by green team 1999
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/chat/715281/posts
Extreme Kuiper Belt Object 2001 QG298
and the Fraction of Contact Binaries
by Scott S. Sheppard and David Jewitt
Astronomical Journal
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-bloggers/1607979/posts?page=115#115
Minor Planets Stick Together
by Selby Cull
June 23, 2006
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-bloggers/1646385/posts?page=34#34
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What. You mean some asteroid is sitting out there, making faces and throwing ROCKS at us?
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