Its only 100 feet across but it now has the honor of being the solar system's fastest-spinning celestial object. Asteroid 1998 KY26 spins once every 10.7 minutes according to an article in this weeks Science magazine.

The asteroid was discovered by astronomers using the Spacewatch telescope at the University of Arizona in Tucson.

The asteroids spin rate is 10 times faster than the spin rate of any other solar-system object and almost 60 times faster than the average of all known asteroid rotation periods, the article reports.

Whirling at that speed and given its size, 1998 KY26 has to be a strong, single chunk of rock that was sent reeling from its parent asteroid in some space collision, said James V. Scotti , a senior research specialist at the UA Lunar and Planetary Laboratory (LPL) and a co-author of the Science paper.

LPL Professor Tom Gehrels, Spacewatch co-founder, discovered asteroid 1998 KY26 on May 28, 1998, using the 0.9 meter (36-inch) Spacewatch telescope at Kitt Peak, Ariz. Six nights later Scotti, joined at the Spacewatch telescope by Dan Durda, took 111 images of the asteroid, measuring its minimum to maximum changes in brightness. Durda of the Southwest Research Institute in Boulder, Co., was formerly with LPL.