Model suggests some asteroids that come close to Earth are torn apart by its gravity

A pair of astronomers, one with Luleå University of Technology's Asteroid Engineering Laboratory, in Finland, the other with the Southwest Research Institute, in the U.S., has found via computer simulation, that some large asteroids that come close to Earth can be torn apart by its gravity. Mikael Granvik and Kevin Walsh have posted their paper on the arXiv preprint server—it is scheduled to be published soon in The Astrophysical Journal Letters.