A lumpy asteroid at the centre of an expanding radius showing that it would get smoother and rounder as it gets larger

The potato radius

I like this radius. It explains some of why asteroids are lumpy and bumpy, kind of like potatoes, and yet planets and moons are smooth round balls.

From the potato radius size, about 2–300km, the mass of the rock itself gets large enough that it is pulled in on its own gravity and consequently starts to round itself off.

I learned about this from Brian Cox’s show Forces of Nature.

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Emotional hot potato illustration: a person is yelled at by their boss at work setting off a chain reaction of bad moods when they get home. Coming though the front door, the worker yells at their partner, who yells at their kid, who yells at their sibling, who yells at the dog, who does a pee on the carpet and walks outside.

Crossmodal perception illustration showing that coffee tastes better when the machine is quiet and why plane food is less tasty

Asteroids, meteors and meteorites - Sketchplanations

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