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Last September, NASA purposefully smashed a spacecraft into Dimorphos, a 160m-wide space rock orbiting a larger asteroid named Didymos.

A study conducted in the wake of the impact found that Dimorphos is made from the same material as Didymos, and that the pair of asteroids likely originated from a single body. But how did they end up as separate asteroids?

The leading theory is called the ‘rotational-disruption’ model: Asteroids with diameters smaller than a few tens of km can disrupt as their fast rotation applies tension on their weak internal strength, resulting in ejected material that goes into orbit and eventually accumulates into a satellite. #shorts #science #space

Credits:
Universe Today
NASA/Johns Hopkins APL
ASI/NASA
Jacint Roger Perez
Kevin J. Walsh, Derek C. Richardson, Patrick Michel
Jacob Kegerreis et al

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