Hi David;
I referenced the reports in the
How to Deflect an Asteroid thread.
Here's the original
David Jewitt et al report and here is the
ESA report.
There were two papers written about it that I can find. I think one of them confirmed the binary nature. {
EDIT: I stand corrected !! I don't think either of these said it was a binary … apologies for that !!}
The object was originally classified as a comet. The ESA Planck reports states:
Quote:
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The peculiar object P/2010 A2 was discovered by the LINEAR near-Earth asteroid survey in January 2010 and given a cometary designation due to the presence of a trail of material, although there was no central condensation or coma.
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This changed after their analysis.
Worthwhile reading the reports. (This thing is an oddball. I doubt that classification criteria would change because of it .. especially now that they've decided what it is).
Cheers