Discovery [1] | |
---|---|
Discovered by | LINEAR (704) |
Discovery date | 6 January 2010 |
Designations | |
Orbital characteristics [3] | |
Epoch 13 October 2010 (JD 2455482.5) | |
Aphelion | 2.58 AU (Q) |
Perihelion | 2.01 AU (q) |
2.29 AU (a) | |
Eccentricity | 0.1246 |
3.47 yr | |
88.9° (M) | |
Inclination | 5.25° |
320° | |
2023-Oct-13 [4] | |
133° | |
Physical characteristics | |
Dimensions | 172.4 × 88.8 m [5] |
Mean diameter | 123.8+33.6 −18.4 m [5] |
11.36±0.02 h | |
Albedo | unknown |
~18-20 [1] | |
21.3±0.6 [6] | |
354P/LINEAR, provisionally designated P/2010 A2 (LINEAR), is a small main-belt asteroid that was impacted by another asteroid sometime before 2010. It was discovered by the Lincoln Near-Earth Asteroid Research (LINEAR) at Socorro, New Mexico on 6 January 2010. The asteroid possesses a dusty, X-shaped, comet-like debris trail that has remained nearly a decade since impact. [5] This was the first time a small-body collision had been observed; since then, minor planet 596 Scheila has also been seen to undergo a collision, in late 2010. The tail is created by millimeter-sized particles being pushed back by solar radiation pressure. [7] [8]
P/2010 A2 was discovered on 6 January 2010 by Lincoln Near-Earth Asteroid Research (LINEAR) using a 1-meter (36") reflecting telescope with a CCD camera. [1] It was LINEAR's 193rd comet discovery. [9] [10] It has been observed over a 112-day arc of the 3.5 year orbit. [3] It appears to have come to perihelion (closest approach to the Sun) around the start of December 2009, [3] about a month before it was discovered.
With an aphelion (furthest distance from the Sun) of only 2.6 AU, [3] P/2010 A2 spends all of its time inside of the frostline at 2.7 AU. [11] Beyond the frostline volatile ices are generally more common. Early observations did not detect water vapor or other gases. [12] Within less than a month of its discovery it was doubtful that the tail of P/2010 A2 was generated via active outgassing from sublimation of ices hidden beneath the crust. [13] Early modeling indicated that the asteroid became active in late March 2009, reached maximum activity in early June 2009, and eased activity in early December 2009. [14]
Observations with the Hubble Space Telescope [15] and the narrow angle camera on board the Rosetta spacecraft [16] indicate that the dust trail seen was probably created by the impact of a small meter size object on the larger asteroid in February or March 2009, although it cannot be ruled out that the asteroid's rotation increased from solar radiation resulting in a loss of mass that formed a comet-like tail. [17]
P/2010 A2 is likely about 150 meters (460 feet) in diameter. [12] Even when it was discovered it was suspected of being less than 500 meters in diameter. [18]
The orbit of P/2010 A2 is consistent with membership in the Flora asteroid family, produced by collisional shattering more than 100 million years ago. [12] The Flora family of asteroids may be the source of the Chicxulub (Cretaceous–Paleogene) impactor, the likely culprit in the extinction of the dinosaurs. [12]
Debris field P/2010 A2 is likely the debris left over from a recent collision between two very small asteroids. | Surviving fragment Surviving fragment seen to the lower left of debris field |
An asteroid is a minor planet—an object that is neither a true planet nor a comet—that orbits within the inner Solar System. They are rocky, metallic or icy bodies with no atmosphere. Sizes and shapes of asteroids vary significantly, ranging from 1-meter rocks to a dwarf planet almost 1000 km in diameter.
The Infrared Astronomical Satellite (IRAS) was the first space telescope to perform a survey of the entire night sky at infrared wavelengths. Launched on 25 January 1983, its mission lasted ten months. The telescope was a joint project of the United States (NASA), the Netherlands (NIVR), and the United Kingdom (SERC). Over 250,000 infrared sources were observed at 12, 25, 60, and 100 micrometer wavelengths.
Comet Elst–Pizarro is a body that displays characteristics of both asteroids and comets, and is the prototype of active asteroids. Its orbit keeps it within the asteroid belt, yet it displayed a dust tail like a comet while near perihelion in 1996, 2001, and 2007.
Jane X. Luu is a Vietnamese-American astronomer and defense systems engineer. She was awarded the Kavli Prize for 2012 "for discovering and characterizing the Kuiper Belt and its largest members, work that led to a major advance in the understanding of the history of our planetary system".
Griseldis is a fairly dark main-belt asteroid 46 km in diameter.
Scheila is a main-belt asteroid and main-belt comet orbiting the Sun. It was discovered on 21 February 1906 by August Kopff from Heidelberg. Kopff named the asteroid after a female English student with whom he was acquainted.
The Panoramic Survey Telescope and Rapid Response System located at Haleakala Observatory, Hawaii, US, consists of astronomical cameras, telescopes and a computing facility that is surveying the sky for moving or variable objects on a continual basis, and also producing accurate astrometry and photometry of already-detected objects. In January 2019 the second Pan-STARRS data release was announced. At 1.6 petabytes, it is the largest volume of astronomical data ever released.
Active asteroids are small Solar System bodies that have asteroid-like orbits but show comet-like visual characteristics. That is, they show a coma, tail, or other visual evidence of mass-loss, but their orbits remain within Jupiter's orbit. These bodies were originally designated main-belt comets (MBCs) in 2006 by astronomers David Jewitt and Henry Hsieh, but this name implies they are necessarily icy in composition like a comet and that they only exist within the main-belt, whereas the growing population of active asteroids shows that this is not always the case.
118401 LINEAR, provisional designation 1999 RE70, is an asteroid and main-belt comet (176P/LINEAR) that was discovered by the Lincoln Near-Earth Asteroid Research (LINEAR) 1-metre telescopes in Socorro, New Mexico on September 7, 1999. (118401) LINEAR was discovered to be cometary on November 26, 2005, by Henry H. Hsieh and David C. Jewitt as part of the Hawaii Trails project using the Gemini North 8-m telescope on Mauna Kea and was confirmed by the University of Hawaii's 2.2-m (88-in) telescope on December 24–27, 2005, and Gemini on December 29, 2005. Observations using the Spitzer Space Telescope have resulted in an estimate of 4.0±0.4 km for the diameter of (118401) LINEAR.
An extinct comet is a comet that has expelled most of its volatile ice and has little left to form a tail and coma. In a dormant comet, rather than being depleted, any remaining volatile components have been sealed beneath an inactive surface layer.
The 2009 Jupiter impact event, occasionally referred to as the Wesley impact, was a July 2009 impact event on Jupiter that caused a black spot in the planet's atmosphere. The impact area covered 190 million square kilometers, similar in area to the planet's Little Red Spot and approximately the size of the Pacific Ocean. The impactor is estimated to have been about 200 to 500 meters in diameter.
238P/Read is a main-belt comet discovered on 24 October 2005 by astronomer Michael T. Read using the Spacewatch 36-inch telescope on Kitt Peak National Observatory. It has an orbit within the asteroid belt and has displayed the coma of a traditional comet. It fits the definition of an Encke-type comet with.
C/1999 S4 (LINEAR) was a long-period comet discovered on September 27, 1999, by LINEAR.
311P/PanSTARRS also known as P/2013 P5 (PanSTARRS) or (Jasurbek) is an active asteroid discovered by Bryce T. Bolin using the Pan-STARRS telescope on 27 August 2013. Observations made by the Hubble Space Telescope revealed that it had six comet-like tails. The tails are suspected to be streams of material ejected by the asteroid as a result of a rubble pile asteroid spinning fast enough to remove material from it. This is similar to 331P/Gibbs, which was found to be a quickly-spinning rubble pile as well.
Comet 252P/LINEAR is a periodic comet and near-Earth object discovered by the LINEAR survey on April 7, 2000. The comet is a Jupiter family comet, meaning that it passes quite close to the orbit of Jupiter.
331P/Gibbs is a small periodic Encke-type and rare main-belt comet, discovered by American amateur astronomer Alex Gibbs.
(300163) 2006 VW139, provisional designations 2006 VW139 and P/2006 VW139, as well as periodic cometary number 288P, is a kilometer-sized asteroid from the outer regions of the asteroid belt and the first "binary main-belt comet" ever discovered.
2I/Borisov, originally designated C/2019 Q4 (Borisov), is the first observed rogue comet and the second observed interstellar interloper after ʻOumuamua. It was discovered by the Crimean amateur astronomer and telescope maker Gennadiy Borisov on 29 August 2019 UTC.
P/2016 G1 (PanSTARRS) was a main-belt asteroid that was destroyed by an impact event on 6 March 2016. It was discovered by Robert Weryk and Richard Wainscoat of the Pan-STARRS 1 survey at Haleakala Observatory. The object was initially thought to be an Encke-type comet because of its diffuse appearance, so it received the periodic comet designation P/2016 G1. After further analysis, what had initially appeared to be a comet's halo turned out to be rubble from a collision. By November 2019, analysis suggested the collision had occurred on 6 March 2016, and the asteroid was struck by a smaller object that may have massed only 1 kilogram (2.2 lb), and was traveling at 11,000 miles per hour (18,000 km/h). P/2016 G1's diameter was between 200 metres (660 ft) and 400 metres (1,300 ft). The asteroid had completely disintegrated by 2017.
P/2013 R3 (Catalina–PanSTARRS) was an active main-belt asteroid that disintegrated from 2013 to 2014 due to the centrifugal breakup of its rapidly-rotating nucleus. It was discovered by astronomers of the Catalina and Pan-STARRS sky surveys on 15 September 2013. The disintegration of this asteroid ejected numerous fragments and dusty debris into space, which temporarily gave it a diffuse, comet-like appearance with a dust tail blown back by solar radiation pressure. Observations by ground-based telescopes in October 2013 revealed that P/2013 R3 had broken up into four major components, with later Hubble Space Telescope observations showing that these components have further broken up into at least thirteen smaller fragments ranging 100–400 meters (330–1,310 ft) in diameter. P/2013 R3 was never seen again after February 2014.