Frothy Basins, or Riddled Basins, were discovered by James C. Alexander of the University of Maryland. The equations that generate this fractal are not very different from those that generate many other orbit fractals. It is not at all uncommon for a dynamical system to have non-point attractors. Shapes such as circles are very common.
Strange attractors are attractors which are themselves fractal.
What is unusual about this system, however, is that the attractors intersect. This is the first case in which such a phenomenon has been observed. The attractors for this system are made up of line segments which overlap to form an equilateral triangle. Which attractor a point is eventually pulled into is extremely sensitive to its initial position. A very slight change in any direction may cause it to end up on a different attractor.