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back to article You spin me right round, baby, right round like an exploding asteroid, baby, right round round round

The Hubble Space Telescope has captured a rare moment of an asteroid breaking apart, leaving trails of glittering dust in its wake. Measuring 2.3 miles across, the space rock known as 6478 Gault lies in the inner region of the asteroid belt, about 214 million miles (344 million kilometers) from the Sun. It was a pretty …

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  1. Neil Barnes Silver badge
    Alien

    all these asteroids that start misbehaving get caught

    Bad asteroid, bad! No cookies for you!

    10 0 Reply
    1. Mark 85
      Reply Icon

      Re: all these asteroids that start misbehaving get caught

      “Asteroids such as Gault cannot escape detection anymore,” Hainaut said.

      Indeed, they can run but they can't hide.

      2 0 Reply
  2. Alister

    Woodstock

    We are stardust, we are golden

    We are billion year old carbon

    And we got to get ourselves back to the garden

    Thanks to Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young...

    0 2 Reply
    1. Aladdin Sane
      Reply Icon

      Re: Woodstock

      Always been particular to the Matthews Southern Comfort version myself. But surely you should be thanking Joni Mitchell since she wrote it?

      12 0 Reply
    2. Swiss Anton
      Reply Icon

      Re: Woodstock

      Downvote for not mentioning Joni Mitchell (who wrote it, and whose version is much better)

      3 1 Reply
      1. Alister
        Reply Icon

        Re: Woodstock

        Joni Mitchell's version doesn't include the lyrics "We are billion year old carbon" that was C,S,N&Y's addition.

        2 2 Reply
        1. Scott 53
          Reply Icon

          Re: Woodstock

          Re: Joni Mitchell's version doesn't include the lyrics "We are billion year old carbon" that was C,S,N&Y's addition.

          It did include the line, but only in the last chorus. C, S, N & Y added it to every chorus.

          5 0 Reply
  3. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    “Asteroids such as Gault cannot escape detection anymore,”

    First parsed as "Asterix the Gaul" which confused me...

    :)

    15 0 Reply
    1. PK
      Reply Icon

      ... which got me thinking it's an orbiting menhir

      7 0 Reply
  4. Tom 7

    Sory cant resist

    Its YORP's fault their leaving?

    0 0 Reply
  5. imanidiot Silver badge
    Headmaster

    Typo?

    YORP effect, effect, ?

    0 0 Reply
  6. 89724102172714182892114I7551670349743096734346773478647892349863592355648544996312855148587659264921

    "...spurts out twin streams of debris"

    Worry if Uranus does this

    3 2 Reply
    1. Muscleguy
      Reply Icon

      I’m sure there’s an ointment for it.

      0 0 Reply
    2. Andy The Hat Silver badge
      Reply Icon
      Mushroom

      Does sound like a good Friday night curry

      "Yorp, rice and a nan bread please ... extra chilli"

      and possibly the aftermath

      "I had terrible yorp this morning ..."

      2 0 Reply
  7. Mike Moyle

    Who is 6478 Gault?

    3 0 Reply
  8. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    The Hubble Space Telescope has captured a rare moment of an asteroid breaking apart

    Me: "Hold my beer!"

    (Drops a single quarter in the slot)

    1 0 Reply
  9. M.V. Lipvig Silver badge

    Seems to be a hole in a theory...

    Planets are said to be formed from accredation disks, where smaller clumps come together and start spinning to form larger ones until they become large enough to have housecats and penguins. On the other hand, this YORPing theory says that sunlight and spinning tears them apart as they fly through space. Each theory goes against the other one.

    Just an observation. I don't mind being wrong here, if I am.

    0 0 Reply
  10. cortland

    Painful asteroids?

    The spam begins — "Buy our Solid Rock Creme, and stay hard forever." Or something like that.

    0 0 Reply

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