
"For objects in the main asteroid belt, the fast-rotation limit to avoid being fragmented is 2.2 hours; asteroids spinning faster than this must be structurally strong to remain intact,"
"The faster an asteroid spins above this limit, and the larger its size, the stronger the material it must be made from."
"Clearly, this asteroid must be made of material that has very high strength in order to keep it in one piece as it spins so rapidly,"
An international team used commissioning-phase data from the Vera C. Rubin Observatory to identify asteroid 2025 MN 45 in the Main Belt rotating once every 1 minute 53 seconds. The object measures about 2,300 feet in diameter, a spin rate that should exceed structural limits for a rubble-pile asteroid and would normally cause fragmentation. The discovery includes three ultrafast rotators under five minutes and 16 superfast rotators with periods between 13 minutes and 2.2 hours; all 19 bodies exceed the length of an American football field. These rotation rates imply unusually high internal material strength for these asteroids.
Read at Futurism
Unable to calculate read time
Collection
[
|
...
]