Related papers: Active Asteroids: Main-Belt Comets and Disrupted A…

Asteroids are classified as tiny and light objects in the solar system, however some of them possess orbiting moons. According to surveys, 15% of near-earth asteroids have moons. The Electrical Discharge effect provides a new model that…

The asteroid belt was dynamically shaped during and after planet formation. Despite representing a broad ring of stable orbits, the belt contains less than one one-thousandth of an Earth mass. The asteroid orbits are dynamically excited…

We present an observational and dynamical study of newly discovered main-belt comet 313P/Gibbs. We find that the object is clearly active both in observations obtained in 2014 and in precovery observations obtained in 2003 by the Sloan…

P/2013 P5 PANSTARRS was discovered in Aug. 2013, displaying a cometary tail, but with orbital elements typical for a member of the inner asteroid Main Belt. We monitored the object from 2013 Aug. 30 until Oct. 05 using the CFHT, NTT, CA…

We present radiometric effective radii and visual geometric albedos for six asteroids in comet-like orbits. Our sample has three of the four known retrograde asteroids (1999 LE31, 2000 DG8, and 2000 HE46) and three objects ((18916) 2000…

Solar system object P/2010 A2 is the first-noticed example of the aftermath of a recently disrupted asteroid, probably resulting from a collision. Nearly a year elapsed between its inferred initiation in early 2009 and its eventual…

The complete sample of large-perihelion nearly-parabolic comets discovered during the period 1901-2010 is studied starting from their orbit determination. Next, an orbital evolution that includes three perihelion passages…

We present a series of observations of the return of activity in main-belt comet 238P/Read. Using data obtained in July and August 2010 when 238P appeared to be largely inactive, we find best-fit IAU phase function parameters of…

In this paper we apply different methods to examine the possibility that a small group of 24 asteroids dynamically linked to main-belt comet P/2006 VW139, recently discovered by the Pan-STARRS1 survey telescope, shares a common physical…

The characteristics of the resonant disturbing function for an asteroid perturbed by a planet in circular orbit are discussed. The location of the libration centers and their dependence with the orbital elements of the resonant orbit are…

The organization of the orbits of most minor bodies in the Solar system seems to follow random patterns, the result of billions of years of chaotic dynamical evolution. Much as heterogeneous orbital behaviour is ubiquitous, dynamically…

In studies of the oldest solar system bodies - comets and asteroids - it is their fragments - meteoroids - that provide the most accessible planetary material for detailed laboratory analysis in the form of dust particles or meteorites.…

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…

We carried out low-resolution optical spectroscopy of 51 main-belt asteroids, most of which have highly-inclined orbits. They are selected from D-type candidates in the SDSS-MOC 4 catalog. Using the University of Hawaii 2.2 m telescope and…

We analyze 760475 observations of 333026 main-belt objects obtained by the Pan-STARRS1 (PS1) survey telescope between 2012 May 20 and 2013 November 9, a period during which PS1 discovered two main-belt comets, P/2012 T1 (PANSTARRS) and…

We present initial observations of the newly-discovered active asteroid 313P/Gibbs (formerly P/2014 S4), taken to characterize its nucleus and comet-like activity. The central object has a radius $\sim$0.5 km (geometric albedo 0.05…

Main belt comets (MBCs) are a peculiar class of volatile-containing objects with comet-like morphology and asteroid-like orbits. However, MBCs are challenging targets to study remotely due to their small sizes and the relatively large…

Comets can exhibit non-gravitational accelerations caused by recoil forces due to anisotropic mass loss. So might active asteroids. We present an astrometric investigation of 18 active asteroids in search of non-gravitational acceleration.…

In an effort to understand the origin of the Main Belt Comets (MBCs) 7968 Elst-Pizzaro, 118401, and P/2005 U1, the dynamics of these three icy asteroids and a large number of hypothetical MBCs were studied. Results of extensive numerical…

Photometric observations of asteroids show that some of them are in non-principal axis rotation state (free precession), called tumbling. Collisions between asteroids have been proposed as a possible asteroid rotation excitation mechanism.…