• Email Us: [email protected]
  • Contact Us: +1 718 874 1545
  • Skip to main content
  • Skip to primary sidebar

Medical Market Report

  • Home
  • All Reports
  • About Us
  • Contact Us

456P/PANSTARRS: New Rare Comet Confirmed In The Main Asteroid Belt

December 3, 2024 by Deborah Bloomfield

The Solar System has a new confirmed comet, after repeated observations of candidate 456P/PANSTARRS showed it is an active, icy body.

The object, discovered in 2021 and given the temporary name 2021 L4, orbits between Mars and Jupiter in the main asteroid belt, taking 3,956 days (10.83 years) to do so. When it was first spotted by the Pan-STARRS observatory, it showed signs that it was outgassing, an unusual property for objects in the main belt.

Advertisement
456P/PANSTARRS's orbit.

456P/PANSTARRS’ orbit.

Image credit: NASA’s Small-Body Database Lookup

Comets are remnants of dust, ice, and rock left over from the formation of the Solar System, typically measuring 1 to 10 kilometers (0.6 to 6 miles) across, and generally going around the Sun on long orbits. They are much more easily spotted than asteroids due to their tails, which can stretch for tens of millions of kilometers.

As comets approach the Sun in their orbit and heat up, they outgas, losing gas and later (when they are even closer to the Sun) dust, which forms their distinctive trail or coma. This outgassing acts like a thruster, slightly altering the trajectory, rotation, and speed of the comet. This is termed “non-gravitational acceleration”, in that it is acceleration not produced by falling into the gravity well of objects in the Solar System. 

Asteroids, meanwhile, are also rocky (and metallic) remnants from those early days of the Solar System, but do not have the ice of comets, nor their distinctive trails. They can range in size from about 530 kilometers (329 miles) in diameter to below 10 meters (33 feet) across, and are generally found on shorter orbits.



Advertisement

But distinctions between the two get murky, for instance with so-called “dark comets” showing characteristics of both.

Asteroids in the main belt can show activity that looks comet-like, with tails of ejected dust looking similar to comets’ distinctive comae. This could occur after an asteroid rotates quickly and results in the ejection, or following a collision.

Repeated observations of 456P/PANSTARRS, however, showed that its tail reoccurred as it moved closer to the Sun, and activity ceased as it moved away.

“This object is not just an asteroid that experienced a one-off event that caused it to show activity one time, but is an inherently active, icy body similar to other comets from the outer solar system,” Planetary Science Institute Senior Scientist Henry Hsieh explained in a statement. 

Advertisement

“There are still very few confirmed main-belt comets known,” Hsieh added. “We want to build up the population so we can get a clearer idea of what their broader properties are – such as their sizes, activity duration and distribution within the asteroid belt, for example – so that they can be better used to trace ice in the Solar System in general.”

The study is published in Research Notes of the AAS.

Deborah Bloomfield
Deborah Bloomfield

Related posts:

  1. Two UK tech figures plan to row the Atlantic for charity supporting minority entrepreneurs
  2. Microsoft now more focused on ‘killing Zoom’ than Slack, says Stewart Butterfield
  3. Taiwan central bank says currency stable, flags more modest intervention
  4. Growing Bones And Gut Feelings: The Latest Steps On The Quest To Map Every Human Cell

Source Link: 456P/PANSTARRS: New Rare Comet Confirmed In The Main Asteroid Belt

Filed Under: News

Primary Sidebar

  • AI May Infringe On Your Rights And Insult Your Dignity (Unless We Do Something Soon)
  • How Do You Study Cryptic Species? We’re Finally Lifting The Lid On The World’s Least Understood Mammals
  • Once-In-A-Decade Close Encounter With Hazardous Asteroid 2025 FA22 Approaches
  • With 229 Pairs, This Beautiful Animal Has The Highest Number Of Chromosomes Of Any Animal
  • “An Unimaginable Breakthrough”: Loudest-Ever Gravitational Wave Collision Proves Stephen Hawking Correct
  • Exciting Martian Mudstone Has Features That Might Be Considered Biosignatures
  • How Long Did Dinosaurs Live? “It’s A Big Surprise To People That Work On Them”
  • NASA’s Mysterious Announcement: “Clearest Sign Of Life That We’ve Ever Found On Mars”
  • New Brain Implant Can Decode Your Internal Monologue, Raising Fears Of Mind Reading
  • “Immediate, Sustained, And Devastating” Pain: The Most Venomous Mammal Packs An Extremely Nasty Sting
  • Domestic Cats Keeping Making Hybrids. That’s A Problem, And Yes – That Includes Some Pets
  • These Strange Little Lizards Have Toxic Green Blood, And No One Knows Exactly Why
  • How Does 2-In-1 Shampoo And Conditioner Work?
  • There Are 2-Billion-Year-Old “Millennium Rocks” In A Suburb, Hundreds Of Miles From Their Primeval Home
  • “That’s A Hellfire Missile Smacking Into That UFO”: Strange Video Emerges From US UAP Hearing
  • In 40,000 Years, Voyager 1 Will Have A Close Encounter With Gliese 445
  • Abnormally Long Gamma Ray Burst Unlike Anything We’ve Seen Before Baffles Astronomers
  • Critically Endangered Shark Meat Is Being Sold In US Stores For As Little As $2.99
  • Infectious Mouth Bacteria Lurking In Artery Plaques Could Be Behind Some Heart Attacks
  • What Would You Reach If You Kept Digging Under Antarctica?
  • Business
  • Health
  • News
  • Science
  • Technology
  • +1 718 874 1545
  • +91 78878 22626
  • [email protected]
Office Address
Prudour Pvt. Ltd. 420 Lexington Avenue Suite 300 New York City, NY 10170.

Powered by Prudour Network

Copyrights © 2025 · Medical Market Report. All Rights Reserved.

Go to mobile version