In any elliptic hexlet, such as the one shown at the top of the article, there are two tangent planes to the hexlet. In order for an elliptic hexlet to exist, the radius of C must be less than one quarter that of A. If C's radius is one quarter of A's, each sphere will become a plane in the journey. The inverted image shows a normal elliptic hexlet, though, and in the parabolic hexlet, the point where a sphere turns into a plane is precisely when its inverted image passes through the centre of inversion. In such a hexlet there is only one tangent plane to the hexlet. The line of the centres of a parabolic hexlet is a parabola.