2815 Soma 2815 Soma 2815 Soma, provisional designation , is a binary Florian asteroid from the inner regions of the asteroid belt, approximately 7 kilometers in diameter. It was discovered on 15 September 1982, by American astronomer Edward Bowell at Lowell's Anderson Mesa Station in Flagstaff, Arizona, in the United States . It is named for the mechanical puzzle Soma cube. "Soma" is a member of the Flora family, a large family of stony asteroids. It orbits the Sun in the inner main-belt at a distance of 1.9–2.6 AU once every 3 years and 4 months (1,219 days). Its orbit has an
Soma cube their faces, such that at least one inside corner is formed. There is one combination of three cubes that satisfies this condition, and six combinations of four cubes that satisfy this condition, of which two are mirror images of each other (see Chirality). Thus, 3 + (6 × 4) is 27, which is exactly the number of cells in a 3×3×3 cube. The Soma cube was analyzed in detail by John Horton Conway on September 1958 in Mathematical Games column in "Scientific American", and the book "Winning Ways for your Mathematical Plays" also contains a detailed analysis of the Soma