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Old 01-11-2007, 12:04 PM
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higginsdj
A Lazy Astronomer

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Join Date: Mar 2006
Location: Canberra
Posts: 614
The Roche limit is the point at which an orbiting object will be pulled apart (or accreted in the case of binary stars).

A good solar system example was Shoemaker Levy 9 that approached inside it's Roche Limit to Jupiter and was stripped down into numerous smaller parts before eventually colliding with Jupiter.

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