Source: Los Angeles Times

Found: A never-before-seen asteroid with six comet-like tails

By Deborah Netburn
November 7, 2013, 12:14 p.m.

A bizarre, never-before-seen asteroid with six comet-like tails has been found in the asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter, and scientists are shocked.

"I'm trying not to use the word 'freak,'" said David Jewitt of UCLA and lead author of a paper about the six-tailed asteroid, "but that's what it is. It is definitely freakish."

A NASA release described the asteroid as looking like "a rotating lawn sprinkler" with dust radiating out from it like spokes on a wheel.

What makes this find especially weird is that asteroids almost never have any kind of tail at all.

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