Mystery of ancient cosmic snowmen in deep space solved

An American student at Michigan State University has unraveled the mystery of the solar system’s “snowman” objects, known as contact binaries, which are composed of two connected spheres. Using a new computer simulation, Jackson Barnes demonstrated that these shapes can form naturally through gravitational collapse, where matter contracts under its own gravity. This research suggests that such formations are common in the Kuiper Belt, where collisions are rare, allowing these structures to persist over billions of years.

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