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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 present the Citizen Science program Active Asteroids and describe discoveries stemming from our ongoing project. Our NASA Partner program is hosted on the Zooniverse online platform and launched on 2021 August 31, with the goal of…

The 1950 discovery of activity emanating from asteroid (4015) Wilson-Harrington prompted astronomers to realize comet-like activity is not limited to comets. Since then < 30 active asteroids have been discovered, yet they hold clues about…

Earth and Planetary Astrophysics · Physics 2022-10-25 Colin Orion Chandler

We present archival observations of Main-belt asteroid (248370) 2005 QN173 (also designated 433P) that demonstrate this recently discovered active asteroid (a body with a dynamically asteroidal orbit displaying a tail or coma) has had at…

Earth and Planetary Astrophysics · Physics 2021-11-24 Colin Orion Chandler , Chadwick A. Trujillo , Henry H. Hsieh

We announce the discovery of a main-belt comet (MBC), 2010 LH15 (alternately designated 2010 TJ175). MBCs are a rare type of main-belt asteroid that display comet-like activity, such as tails or comae, caused by sublimation. Consequently,…

Main-belt asteroid 2010 LH$_{15}$ has been classified as an active asteroid, based on the recent discovery of dust activity from the archival images observed in 2010 and 2019. In this study, we perform measurements and dynamical modeling of…

Earth and Planetary Astrophysics · Physics 2025-07-22 Bin Liu , Cunhui Li , Zhongcheng Mu , Xiaodong Liu

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…

The study of active asteroids has attracted a great deal of interest in recent years since the recognition of main-belt comets (which orbit in the main asteroid belt, but exhibit comet-like activity due to the sublimation of volatile ices)…

Earth and Planetary Astrophysics · Physics 2015-11-09 Henry H. Hsieh

It is well known that some Main Belt asteroids show comet-like features. A representative example is the first known Main Belt comet 133P/(7968) Elst-Pizarro. If the mechanisms causing this activity are too weak to develop visually evident…

Earth and Planetary Astrophysics · Physics 2014-01-23 S. Cikota , J. L. Ortiz , A. Cikota , N. Morales , G. Tancredi

We have discovered two epochs of activity on quasi-Hilda 2009 DQ118. Small bodies that display comet-like activity, such as active asteroids and active quasi-Hildas, are important for understanding the distribution of water and other…

We present observations using the Baade Magellan and Canada-France-Hawaii telescopes showing that main-belt comet 324P/La Sagra, formerly known as P/2010 R2, has become active again for the first time since originally observed to be active…

Earth and Planetary Astrophysics · Physics 2015-10-07 Henry H. Hsieh , Scott S. Sheppard

Context. (4015) Wilson-Harrington (hereafter, WH) was discovered as a comet in 1949 but has a dynamical property consistent with that of a near-Earth asteroid. Although there is a report that the 1949 activity is associated with an ion…

Active asteroids behave dynamically like asteroids but display comet-like comae. These objects are poorly understood, with only about 30 identified to date. We have conducted one of the deepest systematic searches for asteroid activity by…

Earth and Planetary Astrophysics · Physics 2018-10-17 Colin Orion Chandler , Anthony M. Curtis , Michael Mommert , Scott S. Sheppard , Chadwick A. Trujillo

Asteroid (6478) Gault was discovered to exhibit a comet-like tail in observations from December 2018, becoming a new member of the so-called active asteroid population in the main asteroid belt. The aims are to investigate the grain…

Dynamically different groups of comets and active asteroids with orbits at 2 - 5 a. u. show dust activity in varying degrees and forms. Photometric study and comparison of physical parameters can help to classify mechanisms and nature of…

Earth and Planetary Astrophysics · Physics 2020-11-30 Serhii Borysenko , Alexander Baransky , Ekkehard Kuehrt , Stephan Hellmich , Stefano Mottola , Karen Meech

We present observations of main-belt comet 358P/PANSTARRS (P/2012 T1) obtained using the Gemini South telescope from 2017 July to 2017 December, as the object approached perihelion for the first time since its discovery. We find best-fit…

Main-belt asteroid (6478) Gault was observed to show cometary features in early 2019. To investigate the cause, we conducted {\it BVR} observations at Xingming Observatory, China, from 2019 January to April. The two tails were formed around…

Earth and Planetary Astrophysics · Physics 2019-07-24 Man-To Hui , Yoonyoung Kim , Xing Gao

On 2019 January 5 a streamer associated with the 4--10 km main-belt asteroid (6478)~Gault was detected by the ATLAS sky survey, a rare discovery of activity around a main-belt asteroid. Archival data from ATLAS and Pan-STARRS1 show the…

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