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NASA's Near Earth Asteroid Rendezvous mission will enter orbit around an asteroid in 1999, thus enabling detailed study of these peculiar objects. In his Perspective, Asphaug describes the current state of understanding of asteroids, and in particular discusses results published in the same issue by [ Veverka et al. ][1] and [ Yeomans et al. ][2] reporting on a flyby encounter between NEAR and the main-belt asteroid Mathilde. [1]: http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/short/278/5346/2109 [2]: http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/short/278/5346/2106
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Erik I. Asphaug (1997) studied this question.
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