🚨RUBIN HAS FOUND AN ASTEROID THAT SHOULDN'T BE SPINNING THIS FAST The Vera C. Rubin Observatory has found another very interesting object. Asteroid 491384 is estimated to be around 2.5 km across, but somehow completes an entire rotation in just 4.18 minutes and that's ridiculously fast for something this big. Most large asteroids are thought to be huge collections of rock and debris held together by gravity. There's a reason astronomers talk about a roughly 2.2 hour spin barrier. If one of these objects goes much beyond that eventually gravity shouldn't be strong enough to stop pieces being ejected. This thing is doing a complete rotation in just four minutes. Researchers think 491384 must have considerable internal strength and could be one enormous cohesive piece of rock than the loose rubble piles we usually associate with asteroids. It's now the largest ultra fast spinning asteroid known. And Rubin found another one over 2 km across spinning roughly once every five minutes. The paper hasn't been peer reviewed yet, so I wouldn't treat the measurements as the final word, but this is exactly why I've been so interested in Rubin. We aren't even that far into its mission and it is already finding objects that exceed what we expected to see. I have a feeling Rubin is going to completely rewrite parts of our Solar System over the next few years. Source: arxiv.org/abs/2610.07584 #VeraRubin #RubinObservatory #Asteroid #Astronomy #Space #SolarSystem #SpaceScience