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3200Phaethon-Feature

The Solar Arrangement is total of some really weird stuff. Venus, despite being further from the Sun than Mercury, has a considerably higher surface temperature. Uranus is tilted on its side and rotates in i direction, while its moons orbit information technology normally. Jupiter'southward moon Io is the most volcanically agile body in the solar system, Mars has a volcanic bulge the same mass as Ceres that may be responsible for changing the orientation of the planet'southward crust with respect to its own centrality of rotation. The existence and composition of our own Moon is an ongoing puzzle nosotros're trying to solve, and nosotros haven't yet establish a solar system that looks anything like our ain. Other solar systems often feature so-called "hot Jupiters" orbiting tightly around their host star, our Jupiter sits in the middle of the solar system — which is probably why life exists on this planet in the beginning place. It may even exist why this planet exists in the starting time identify.

Given these facts, it shouldn't be surprising that there's a actually weird asteroid-comet hybrid whizzing around complicating things. And thanks to a close flyby last Dec, nosotros're a little flake closer to agreement this intriguing rock. 3200 Phaethon is unambiguously a rocky asteroid with a closer approach to the Sun than whatsoever other named asteroid. Its perihelion altitude is just 0.14 AU — less than half of Mercury'due south own approach distance. Its orbit closely resembles that of a comet rather than an asteroid, however, and its orbit and position correspond well with it being the source of the Geminid falling star shower. Just that'due south besides where the confusion comes in because if 3200 Phaethon is the source of the Geminids, it's the only asteroid known to cause a meteor shower — that's a characteristic of comets.

3200 Phaethon's orbit. Prototype by NASA JPL

The divergence between a comet and an asteroid is typically their limerick: Asteroids are principally composed of rock and metals, comets are a collection of water ice, some rock, and dust. Asteroids formed closer to the Sunday, where the star'due south heat meant there was picayune to no water ice present. The coma of a comet — the brilliant fuzzy gaseous mistiness nosotros see around its caput — forms when water water ice and dust sublimate from inside the core or the surface. Asteroids don't contain these ice reserves and therefore don't sublimate in the same fashion. Or and so we thought. But 3200 Phaethon blurs these distinctions in some interesting ways.

The team's new findings bear witness that 3200 Phaethon may not be related to the Pallas meteor family, as was previously thought. The meteor'south albedo is only slightly higher than charcoal, even if it shares a blueish hue with the much brighter 2 Pallas. An investigation revealed that the asteroid is the aforementioned color everywhere, implying it's been fried by repeated exposure to the Dominicus at such close range (Space.com reports that at close range, Phaethon's surface temperature would exceed 1500F / 800C). It's idea that 3200 Phaethon could be a comet remnant that'due south been cooked to a well-baked past the Sun over time — while the asteroid does give off some dust as it approaches our star, it's not most enough to sustain the Geminids over fourth dimension.

The aggregate findings mostly ostend that 3200 Phaethon isn't exactly a comet or an asteroid, just an object with some of the characteristics of each that puts a foot in both camps. The more we discover near our own backyard, the more fascinating information technology looks.

Feature image past Heather Roper/University of Arizona

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