I am a bit confused as to why the slowing of the little satellite around the
larger asteroid led to an orbit that is smaller and has a shorter period.
Generally orbital velocities have to speed up the closer an object is to its
massive partner. Venus's orbital speed is > than Earth's for instance. My
physics book related the orbital velocity as V= sq root(GM/R) where G is the
universal gravitational constant, M mass of the central body and R the
radius of the orbiting body. Chuck Jacobson