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Nature 425, 131-132 (11 September 2003) | doi:10.1038/425131a

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Planetary science: Spin control for asteroids

Richard P. Binzel1

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Random collisions between asteroids would seem to cause their spin axes to be tilted in all directions. Surprisingly, the gentle recoil force of thermal re-radiation may bring their spin axes into alignment.

Influencing the public perception of a political story might seem like small potatoes compared with controlling the spin of the mountain-sized rocks in space that we call asteroids. These leftover building blocks from the era of planetary formation have undergone random and relentless collisions that have sculpted their shapes over the past 4.

  1. Richard P. Binzel is in the Department of Earth, Atmospheric and Planetary Sciences, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, Massachusetts 02139, USA.
    Email: rpb@mit.edu