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Cosmic Conjoined Twins, Caught on Camera
The New York Times • • general
Key Points:
- A Japanese spacecraft flew past the asteroid Torifune at 11,000 mph, capturing close-up images from just 2,600 feet away, revealing new details about the object.
- The images showed that Torifune is actually a contact binary, consisting of two asteroids stuck together in a rare, gradual, and nonviolent manner.
- Contact binaries, once thought to be extremely rare, have been increasingly discovered in recent years, including notable examples like Arrokoth and the asteroid Dinkinesh with its companion Selam.
- These asteroid pairs can exist either as orbiting binaries or contact binaries, where two bodies remain physically connected, providing insight into asteroid formation and behavior in the solar system.
