We present the discovery of activity emanating from main-belt asteroid 2015 FW412, a finding stemming from the Citizen Science project Active Asteroids, a NASA Partner program. We identified a pronounced tail originating from 2015 FW412 and oriented in the anti-motion direction in archival Blanco 4-m (Cerro Tololo Inter-American Observatory, Chile) Dark Energy Camera (DECam) images from UT 2015 April 13, 18, 19, 21 and 22. Activity occurred near perihelion, consistent with the main-belt comets (MBCs), an active asteroid subset known for sublimation-driven activity in the main asteroid belt; thus 2015 FW412 is a candidate MBC. We did not detect activity on UT 2021 December 12 using the Inamori-Magellan Areal Camera and Spectrograph (IMACS) on the 6.5 m Baade telescope, when 2015 FW412 was near aphelion.
@article{arxiv.2302.07274,
title = {Discovery of Dust Emission Activity Emanating from Main-belt Asteroid 2015 FW412},
author = {Colin Orion Chandler and Chadwick A. Trujillo and William J. Oldroyd and Jay K. Kueny and William A. Burris and Henry H. Hsieh and Michele T. Mazzucato and Milton K. D. Bosch and Tiffany Shaw-Diaz},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2302.07274},
year = {2023}
}