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Story summary
- Researchers show that contact binaries in the Kuiper Belt form when two icy bodies gravitationally collapse into a double-lobed object.
- Jackson Barnes, a graduate student at Michigan State University, developed a simulation.
- The study, published February 19, 2026, estimates about 10% of Kuiper Belt planetesimals exhibit this formation.
- Future National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) missions may discover more of these objects.
