Discovery of strange asteroid properties upends previous assumptions about comets
Brady Knox
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Recent research into a strange asteroid has caused scientists to question previously assumed properties of many comets.
Scientists have long been monitoring asteroid 3200 Phaethon, an asteroid that acts like a comet. But a recent study published in the Planetary Science Journal suggests that it does not emit a tail of dust, as comets do. Instead, it emits a tail of sodium gas.
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“Our analysis shows that Phaethon’s comet-like activity cannot be explained by any kind of dust,” California Institute of Technology Ph.D. student Qicheng Zhang, the lead author of the study, told the National Aeronautics and Space Agency.
Suspicions began in 2018 when imaging from NASA’s Parker Solar Probe showed the “tail” from Phaethon emitted much more material than would be possible if it were just dust. Zhang’s team hypothesized that the material could be sodium gas.
“Comets often glow brilliantly by sodium emission when very near the Sun, so we suspected sodium could likewise serve a key role in Phaethon’s brightening,” Zhang said.
The team utilized the Solar and Heliospheric Observatory (SOHO) spacecraft to observe Phaethon’s 2022 passing by Earth. The craft had color filters that would detect different materials. Imaging found that the tail showed up when imaging looking for sodium was used, but none appeared when imaging looking for dust was used.
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The discovery suggests that many other terrestrial objects thought to be comets may have the same properties.
“A lot of those other sunskirting ‘comets’ may also not be ‘comets’ in the usual, icy body sense, but may instead be rocky asteroids like Phaethon heated up by the Sun,” Zhang told NASA.