Number 230 (Story #3), June 14, 1995 by Phillip F. Schewe and Ben Stein THE MOST ELONGATED SOLAR SYSTEM OBJECT YET IMAGED is the asteroid 1620 Geographos. Like the most oblong nucleus described in the paragraph above, the pototo-shaped Geographos has an aspect ratio (length/width) of about 3 (2.76 to be exact). The 5-km Geographos, which passed to within 0.034 astronomical units of Earth in August 1994, was photographed at radar wavelengths by Caltech astronomers. Small asteroids are generally thought to be the result of the breakup or collision of larger bodies. Laboratory fragmentation studies suggest the average aspect ratio for pieces should be 1.4. Only 1% of fragments should be as oblong as Geographos. (S.J. Ostro et al., Nature, 8 June 1995.)