Astronomers have observed that an unusual, comet-like type of object in the asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter is actually two asteroids that orbit each other.
With the help of the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope, astronomers found that the object has comet-like features, including a bright coma and a long tail. This is the first known binary asteroid also classified as a comet.
Asteroid 288P was discovered by in 2006, according to Stephen Larson, a senior staff scientist at the University of Arizona’s Lunar and Planetary Laboratory and a coauthor on the paper. Cometary activity was noticed in Hawaii Pan-Starrs data in 2011 as it approached perihelion—close approach to the sun—and is the first known “main belt comet” as it orbits in the main asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter.
This time-lapse video, assembled from a set of ESA/NASA Hubble Space Telescope images, reveals two asteroids with comet-like features orbiting each other. These images reveal ongoing activity in the binary system. The apparent movement of the tail is a projection effect due to the relative alignment among the sun, Earth and 288P changing between observations. (Credit: NASA, ESA and J. Agarwal/Max Planck Institute for Solar System Research/U. Arizona)
In September 2016, just before the asteroid 288P made its closest approach to the sun, it was close enough to Earth to allow astronomers a detailed look at it using the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope. Like any object orbiting the sun, 288P travels along an elliptical path, bringing it closer to and farther away from the sun during the course of one orbit.
The images of 288P revealed that it actually was not a single object but two asteroids of almost the same mass and size, orbiting each other at a distance of about 100 kilometers (62 miles). That discovery was in itself an important find; because they orbit each other, the masses of the objects in such systems can be measured.
But the observations also revealed ongoing activity in the binary system. This team of researchers has been working for several years trying to identify the mechanism for the observed activity using the Hubble Space Telescope, Larson says.
“These so-called active asteroids are likely comets that have lost most of their volatile ices and may provide the link between comets and some asteroids,” he says. “There are about 20 known active asteroids that result from collisions, volatile gas outgassing, and splitting due to rotational spin-up.”
“We detected strong indications of the sublimation of water ice due to the increased solar heating—similar to how the tail of a comet is created,” explains Jessica Agarwal of the Max Planck Institute for Solar System Research in Germany, the team leader and main author of the research paper. This makes 288P the first known binary asteroid that also is classified as a main-belt comet.
Understanding the origin and evolution of main-belt comets—asteroids orbiting between Mars and Jupiter that show comet-like activity—is a crucial element in our understanding of the formation and evolution of the whole solar system. Among the questions main-belt comets can help to answer is how water came to Earth.
This artist’s impression shows the binary main-belt comet 288P. From a distance, the comet-like features of the system can clearly be seen: among them, the bright coma surrounding both components of the system and the long tail of dust and water pointing away from from the sun. Only a closer look reveals the two components of the system: two asteroids circling each other on an eccentric orbit. (Credit: ESA/Hubble, L. Calçada, M. Kornmesser/U. Arizona)
Current research indicates that water came to Earth not via comets, as long thought, but via icy asteroids. Since only a few objects of this type are known, 288P presents itself as an extremely important system for future studies.
“The high resolution of the Hubble Space Telescope provides unique data constraining the various processes at work in active asteroids,” Larson says. “A few of these have been discovered by the UA Catalina Sky Survey, which also provides 14 years of data on historical activity of these active asteroids.”
The various features of 288P—wide separation of the two components, near-equal component size, high eccentricity, and cometlike activity—also make it unique among the few known wide asteroid binaries in the solar system.
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The observed activity of 288P also reveals information about its past, Agarwal notes: “Surface ice cannot survive in the asteroid belt for the age of the solar system but can be protected for billions of years by a refractory dust mantle, only a few meters thick.”
From this, the team concluded that 288P has existed as a binary system for only about 5,000 years. Agarwal elaborated on the formation scenario: “The most probable formation scenario of 288P is a breakup due to fast rotation. After that, the two fragments may have been moved further apart by sublimation torques.”
The fact that 288P is so different from all other known binary asteroids raises some questions about whether it is not just a coincidence that it presents such unique properties. As finding 288P included a lot of luck, it is likely to remain the only example of its kind for a long time.
“We need more theoretical and observational work, as well as more objects similar to 288P, to find an answer to this question,” Agarwal concludes.
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The research appears in the journal Nature.
The Hubble Space Telescope is a project of international cooperation between ESA and NASA.
Additional astronomers contributing to the research are from the Max Planck Institute for Solar System Research, Göttingen, Germany; the University of California, Los Angeles; the Space Telescope Science Institute, Baltimore; Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory, Maryland; and the University of Arizona.
Source: University of Arizona
