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Asteroids

How to make a flying saucer

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Wherever we look in the Solar System, small bodies often seem to come in twos. Simulations show how asteroids spun in the Sun can produce such pairings — one of whose members acquires a strangely familiar shape.

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Figure 1: Science fact.

©THE ESTATE OF ALEX SCHOMBURG

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Bottke, W. How to make a flying saucer. Nature 454, 173–174 (2008). https://doi.org/10.1038/454173a

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