"...what became of the object"?!?!?

[Mr_John_Smith]

[url]University of St Andrews scientists create 'fastest man-made spinning object' - BBC News

I discovered this article today, and it blew my mind.

The aim of the experiment was to see what would happen if a microscopic sphere was spun as fast as was technically possible. The team balanced it on a laser beam in a complete vacuum and then spun it using the light itself. They saw it spin faster and faster until it reached 600 million rpm - and then it seemed to vanish! The researchers don’t know what happened to the sphere - but one possibility is that the object may have reached some theoretical speed limit - after which it changed in some way. The next step for the researchers is to discover what became of the object and whether they really have discovered a completely new physical phenomenon.

Does anyone else know anything more about this?

EDIT: They think it broke up, but they are not sure.
[url]https://en.wikinews.org/wiki/Wikinews_interviews_Dr._Michael_Mazilu_on_creating_world's_fastest_spinning_manmade_object[/url]

[Iggmoe]

It spuntaneously evaporated.

[mtylerjr]

“The spinning sphere turned into a miniature gyroscope, stabilising itself. The ball cooled as it span to −233°C (−387°F, 40 Kelvin).”

Cooled as it [em]span[/em]? Is that the past tense of spin?I thought it was “spun”

Nevertheless, very interesting.

I wonder how they measured the temperature of something spinning that fast.

[Mr_John_Smith]

@ mtylerjr - I wonder how they did that too. Yea it should be spun.