the two fins lead to torque and the object spins. The torque from the outgoing light does not average out, even over a full rotation, so the spin accelerates over time. An object with some "windmill" asymmetry can therefore be subjected to minuscule torque forces that will tend to spin it up or down as well as make its axis of rotation precess. The YORP effect is zero for a rotating ellipsoid if there are no irregularities in surface temperature or albedo. In the long term, the object's changing obliquity and rotation rate may wander randomly, chaotically or regularly, depending on several factors. For example, assuming the Sun remains on its equator, asteroid 951 Gaspra, with a radius of 6 km and a semi-major axis of 2.21 AU, would in 240 Ma (240 million years) go from a rotation period of 12 h to 6 h and vice versa. If 243 Ida were given the same radius and orbit values as Gaspra, it would spin up or down twice as fast, while a body with Phobos' shape would take several billion years to change its spin by the same amount. Size as well as shape affects the amount of the effect. Smaller objects will spin up or down much more quickly. If Gaspra were smaller by a factor of 10 (to a radius of 500 m), its spin will halve or double in just a few million years. Similarly, the YORP effect intensifies for objects closer to the Sun. At 1 AU, Gaspra would double/halve its spin rate in a mere 100,000 years. After one million years, its period may shrink to ~2 h, at which point it could start to break apart. According to a 2019 model, the YORP effect is likely to cause "widespread fragmentation of asteroids" as the Sun expands into a luminous red giant, and may explain the dust disks and apparent infalling matter observed at many white dwarfs. This is one mechanism through which binary asteroids may form, and it may be more common than collisions and planetary near-encounter tidal disruption as the primary means of binary formation. Asteroid was later named 54509 YORP to honor its part in the confirmation of this phenomenon. See also 25143 Itokawa - Smallest asteroid to be visited by a spacecraft Notes References Further reading External links Asteroid rotation discovery reported Orbital perturbations Rotation Asteroids Radiation effects