Comet or Asteroid ?
January 23rd 2010 09:26
A mysterious comet-like object recently found in images obtained from a ground-based
telescopes might be fine particle debris from a high-speed asteroid collision, according to reports printed in some scientific journals.
The comet like object may contain rock and ice fragments that have sublimated forming a tail like appearance much like any ordinary comet.
P/2010 A2 is the 5th object classed as Main Belt Comet (MBC)
Main Belt Comets do not behave as normal comets, MBC objects orbit within the warmer, inner regions of the asteroid belt.
If this theory is confirmed, the object would represent the first time
astronomers have witnessed the debris of a high speed collision with another object in space.
Dubbed P/2010 A2 (LINEAR), the fuzzy, tailed mystery object is about 130,000
miles (210,000 kilometers) to 190,000 miles (305,000 kilometers) long. The debris looks like a fuzzy comet’s tail, stretching partway across the Solar system in the asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter.
The asteroid belt contains thousands of asteroids of all shapes and sizes. The asteroid belt is about 250 million miles (402 million kilometers) from Earth.
Image James Annis (Fermilab), and David Jewitt (UCLA)
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