365NEWSX
365NEWSX
Subscribe

Welcome

A ‘Front-Row Seat’ to the Birth of a Comet - The New York Times

A ‘Front-Row Seat’ to the Birth of a Comet - The New York Times

A ‘Front-Row Seat’ to the Birth of a Comet - The New York Times
Dec 03, 2020 1 min, 11 secs

Astronomers are watching an object transform into a hyperactive comet that will head toward the inner solar system in the coming decades.

Astronomers recently witnessed an enigmatic icy object in Jupiter’s shadow begin its transformation into a type of comet, one that sticks close to the sun.

The object, named LD2, is called a Centaur, an icy proto-world named after mythological part-person, part-horse creatures because these orbs can behave like an asteroid and a comet.

The migration of comets and soggy asteroids from the fringes of our stellar neighborhood toward the rocky inner worlds was like a water delivery service in the early days of the solar system, slaking the thirst of planets drying out because of giant impacts and planetwide magma oceans.

In 2019, the Asteroid Terrestrial-impact Last Alert System or ATLAS, a pair of NASA-funded telescopes developed by the University of Hawaii that search for potential city-killing and country-crushing space rocks, spotted an object that appeared to be tracing Jupiter’s orbital path.

Like a cyclist going around a velodrome encountering a sudden steep drop, LD2 was thrown off-balance, putting it on course to fall toward, and ultimately remain mostly within, the inner solar system.

But its coma lacks water vapor, said Teddy Kareta, a planetary astronomy graduate student at the University of Arizona and co-author of the study.

Being close enough to the sun, its water ice will be persistently obliterated, fueling a water vapor coma.

Summarized by 365NEWSX ROBOTS

RECENT NEWS

SUBSCRIBE

Get monthly updates and free resources.

CONNECT WITH US

© Copyright 2024 365NEWSX - All RIGHTS RESERVED