W. M. Keck Observatory | 2015 Mar 19
A team led by astronomers from the Jagiellonian University in Krakow, Poland, recently used the W. M. Keck Observatory in Hawaii to observe and measure a rare class of “active asteroids” that spontaneously emit dust and have been confounding scientists for years. The team was able to measure the rotational speed of one of these objects, suggesting the asteroid spun so fast it burst, ejecting dust and newly discovered fragments in a trail behind it. The findings are being published in Astrophysical Journal Letters on March 20, 2015.
Active asteroid P/2012 F5 captured by Keck II/DEIMOS in mid-2014.
Top: A wide-angle view of the main nucleus and smaller fragments
embedded in a long dust trail. Bottom: A close-up view with the trail
numerically removed to enhance the visibility of the fragments.
Credit: M. Drahus, W. Waniak (OAUJ) / W. M. Keck Observatory
Unlike the hundreds of thousands of asteroids in the main belt of our solar system, which move cleanly along their orbits, active asteroids were discovered several years ago mimicking comets with their tails formed by calm, long lasting ice sublimation.
Then in 2010 a new type of active asteroid was discovered, which ejected dust like a shot without an obvious reason. Scientist gravitated around two possible hypotheses. One states the explosion is a result of a hypervelocity collision with another minor object. The second popular explanation describes it as a consequence of “rotational disruption”, a process of launching dust and fragments by spinning so fast, the large centrifugal forces produced exceed the object’s own gravity, causing it to break apart. Rotational disruption is the expected final state of what is called the YORP effect – a slow evolution of the rotation rate due to asymmetric emission of heat. ...
Fast Rotation and Trailing Fragments of the Active Asteroid P/2012 F5 (Gibbs) - Michał Drahus et al
- Astrophysical Journal Letters 802(1) L8 (20 Mar 2015) DOI: 10.1088/2041-8205/802/1/L8