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Did you know? Asteroids


Aretha asteroid orbit - courtesy NASA

This month we feature…. Asteroids

Asteroids come in all shapes and sizes, from the almost spherical to irregular like Eros which is shaped like a potato. The largest asteroid is Ceres at 940 km, the smallest is 2015 TC25 a 2 metre piece of space rock.

If all the 600,000 known asteroids were combined their mass would be less than that of the Moon.

Among the more unusual names for asteroids are:

Asteroid 249516 Aretha (Aretha Franklin) - orbit is shown in the NASA diagram above

Asteroid 16155 Buddy (Buddy Holly)

Asteroid 9007 James Bond

Asteroid 23990 Springsteen (Bruce Springsteen)

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