| Line | When asteroids collide, some collisions cause |
| | an asteroid to spin faster; others slow it down. If |
| | asteroids are all monoliths—single rocks—undergoing |
| | random collisions, a graph of their rotation rates |
| (5) | should show a bell-shaped distribution with statistical |
| | tails of very fast and very slow rotators. If asteroids |
| | are rubble piles, however, the tail representing the |
| | very fast rotators would be missing, because any |
| | loose aggregate spinning faster than once every few |
| (10) | hours (depending on the asteroids bulk density) |
| | would fly apart. Researchers have discovered that |
| | all but five observed asteroids obey a strict limit on |
| | rate of rotation. The exceptions are all smaller than |
| | 200 meters in diameter, with an abrupt cutoff for |
| (15) | asteroids larger than that. |
| | The evident conclusion—that asteroids larger than |
| | 200 meters across are multicomponent structures |
| | or rubble piles—agrees with recent computer modeling |
| | of collisions, which also finds a transition at that |
| (20) | diameter. A collision can blast a large asteroid to bits, |
| | but after the collision those bits will usually move |
| | slower than their mutual escape velocity. Over several |
| | hours, gravity will reassemble all but the fastest |
| | pieces into a rubble pile. Because collisions among |
| (25) | asteroids are relatively frequent, most large bodies |
| | have already suffered this fate. Conversely, most |
| | small asteroids should be monolithic, because impact |
| | fragments easily escape their feeble gravity. |