Astronomers find ‘lost’ comets in asteroid belt

Studies of the Asteroid Belt, a circular region of the Solar System filled with rocky debris that lies between Mars and Jupiter, have found that there aren’t just asteroids. Apparently, “lost” comets were found there.

Through the Isaac Newton Telescope, on La Palma, in the Canary Islands, a team from the University of Edinburgh, Scotland, was able to observe one of these “outsider” bodies. Between 2018 and 2020, 534 different asteroids were analyzed, with signs of a comet’s coma – the nebulous part above the nucleus – or tail, which arises from solar winds.

Comets are believed to originate in the fringes of the Solar System and beyond, as these are colder regions. Astronomy graduate student Lea Farellec, one of the authors of this latest study, says the challenge is to explain how ice survived for so long on this comet discovered in the asteroid belt.

Answering this question will have implications for future research into planetary diversity, the layout of the Solar System, and could even help answer one of astronomy’s biggest questions: the origin of water on Earth.

Some astronomers suspect that at least some of Earth’s water comes from comets. Robotic reconnaissance missions and remote observations have shown that the chemical fingerprints of water often don’t match those of Earth. “This means that objects such as asteroid belt comets could be a source of Earth’s water,” said study co-author Colin Snodgrass, also of the University of Edinburgh.

It’s not the first time comets have been seen in the region. The first belt comet was discovered in 1996. Over the course of time, eight more have been detected since then.

In this new approach, they found only one new candidate: 2001 NL19. According to Farellec, this object could have been born from the vaporization of ice. Further observations will be needed as it gets closer to the Sun, when its tail is most likely to appear.

The existence of these comets in the asteroid belt interferes with the categorization of these natural phenomena. There is speculation that they appeared in the early days of the Solar System and were pushed around by gravity, but this is only speculation. Further studies on this topic are needed to solve the problem.

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Source: Olhar Digital