one that apparently shows a comet like many in orbit around the Sun may eventually prove to be the first witness in a direct collision between asteroids. On January 6th the net LINEAR (Lincoln Near Earth Asteroid Research) dedicated to the detection of potentially hazardous asteroids to the Earth has discovered an object, called P/2010 A2, which, presenting with a long tail, was immediately classified as a comet. The object travels very eccentric orbit within the asteroid belt, a region of space between the orbits of Mars and Jupiter with thousands of rocky bodies the size of several, a few meters up to hundreds miles. It 'was, however, its orbit crossed by P/2010 A2 give rise to some doubt about its real nature. Usually, in fact, the orbits of comets high ellipticity which brought them to come close to the Sun and then left up to very remote regions. Just during the closest approach we are witnessing the formation of the tail, caused by the action of sunlight on volatile components of comets. Astronomers have therefore suggested that the queue is shown by P/2010 A2 could be a long trail of debris formed as a result of a collision between two asteroids. Hypothesis that seems to have found the first confirmation by the discovery nearby of a rocky body P/2010 A2 size equal a circa 200 metri, che si muove nella stessa direzione e con la stessa velocità della coda e che potrebbe essere perciò il frammento di maggiori dimensioni formatosi a seguito dello scontro. Saranno, tuttavia, necessarie ulteriori osservazioni per trovare conferme all'ipotesi dello scontro che, in questo caso, sarebbe il primo fra asteroidi a essere stato osservato quasi in diretta.
Credit: Jim Scotti
0 comments:
Post a Comment