UPDATE:  SOLVED by Rob at 12:29 CDT

Ah, I see you out there.  You’re quietly looking over the riddle to see if you know the answer, then leaving without a word.  You really should give it a guess, you know.  I promise nobody will laugh hysterically, point fingers, or ridicule your comment.

Tom and I are winding down this cycle, getting ready for another bonus riddle round.  Get your name on the list so you too can experience the aggravation and frustration of trying to solve a really tough riddle in three guesses, with no feedback, not seeing the other guesses, not knowing if you’re right or wrong — warm or cold — until the next day.  YAY!

Okay, right on to today’s brain-buster.  Well, maybe not “brain-buster”.  How about “brain-exerciser”?  Ready?  Today you will be looking for an object:

We think of this object as one thing, but it’s really two.

This object does something important.

While not the largest of its kind, this certainly makes the top 15.

It’s recently been involved in some very interesting discoveries.

It gets around a common problem of its “kind” by, in essence, wearing glasses.

Its two parts are not close together, but have this whole North/South thing going on.

If you follow the blog, you have a running start at guessing this one.

Nobody has to be near this to make it work.

We see it, but it never looks at us.

How about that?  Clear as mud.  Get those guesses in… you know I’m in the comments waiting for someone to talk to me.