<div style="margin: 12px 0px; font-family: arial; color: #333333; background: #ffffff; border: solid 4px #e5e5e5; width: 100%; clear: left;"><div class="CM_CTB_Content_Wrap" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px;background-color: #ffffff;"><div style="border-bottom: solid 1px #dcdcdc; white-space: nowrap; margin-bottom: 8px; background-color: #eeeeee ;background-image: url(http://clipmarks.com/images/source-bg.gif); background-repeat: repeat-x; height: 24px; line-height: 24px; vertical-align: middle; padding-bottom: 4px; color: #666666; font-size: 10px;" ><a href="http://clipmarks.com/clip-to-blog/" title="see clips that are hot right now"><img src="http://content.clipmarks.com/blog_embed/da7bc30c-ec45-4ca5-9277-e3fe616cffa2/234A8A9C-1CAC-4082-8CC3-F6060DA2C166/" alt="" width="19" height="19" border="0" style="vertical-align: middle; margin: 0px 4px; display: inline; border: none; float:none;" /></a>clipped from <a title="http://www.space.com/scienceastronomy/080213-triple-asteroid.html" href="http://www.space.com/scienceastronomy/080213-triple-asteroid.html" style="font-size: 11px;">www.space.com</a></div><blockquote style="text-align: left; padding: 0px 8px; margin: 4px 0px 8px 0px; background: transparent; border: none;" cite="http://www.space.com/scienceastronomy/080213-triple-asteroid.html">The first triple asteroid near Earth has been discovered.</blockquote><div style="height: 2px; font-size: 2px; background: #dcdcdc; border-bottom: solid 1px #f5f5f5; margin: 2px 4px;"></div><blockquote style="text-align: left; padding: 0px 8px; margin: 4px 0px 8px 0px; background: transparent; border: none;" cite="http://www.space.com/scienceastronomy/080213-triple-asteroid.html">It was originally found in 2001, but new observations with the radar telescope at the Arecibo Observatory in Puerto Rico reveal it is three gravitationally bound rocks.</blockquote><div style="height: 2px; font-size: 2px; background: #dcdcdc; border-bottom: solid 1px #f5f5f5; margin: 2px 4px;"></div><blockquote style="text-align: left; padding: 0px 8px; margin: 4px 0px 8px 0px; background: transparent; border: none;" cite="http://www.space.com/scienceastronomy/080213-triple-asteroid.html">"This discovery has extremely important implications for ideas about the origins of near-Earth asteroids and the processes responsible for their physical properties," said Cornell University and Arecibo astronomer Michael C. Nolan. "Double, or binary, asteroid systems are known to be fairly common — about one in six near-Earth asteroids is a binary — but this is the first near-Earth triple system to be discovered."</blockquote><div style="height: 2px; font-size: 2px; background: #dcdcdc; border-bottom: solid 1px #f5f5f5; margin: 2px 4px;"></div><blockquote style="text-align: left; padding: 0px 8px; margin: 4px 0px 8px 0px; background: transparent; border: none;" cite="http://www.space.com/scienceastronomy/080213-triple-asteroid.html">Nolan said this finding prompts several questions: Are the objects orbiting in the same plane? How rapidly are the orbits changing with time? Did the smaller objects, which Nolan calls moons, form when this asteroid system formed in the main asteroid belt, or after it arrived in near-Earth space?</blockquote></div><div style="margin: 0px 6px 6px 4px;"><table style="font-size: 11px;border-spacing: 0px;padding: 0px;" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" width="100%"><tr><td style="background:transparent;border-width:0px;padding:0px;">&nbsp;</td><td align="right" style="background:transparent;border-width:0px;padding:0px;width:107px" width="107"><a href="http://clipmarks.com/share/234A8A9C-1CAC-4082-8CC3-F6060DA2C166/blog/" title="blog or email this clip"><img src="http://content6.clipmarks.com/images/c2b-foot.png" border="0" alt="blog it" width="107" height="17" style="border-width:0px;padding:0px;margin:0px;" /></a></td></tr></table></div></div>

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