P/2010 A2 (LINEAR)
Discovered by LINEAR on January, 8 2010
The latest IAU telegrams or the latest CBET's. IAUC Astronomical Headlines.
Minor
planet center's orbital elements and Ephemeris,
the comet on
Seiichi Yoshida's Homepage
Light
curves on Cometas Obs,
JPL Small body
database
The object is probably the remaining dust/debris resulting from a collision of two asteroids.
Read the comments of professional astronomers like Richard Miles (BAA), Michael Kelley (University of Maryland) and Hal Weaver (NASA), please.
The Hubble Space Telescope is actually observing the structure on some days until June 2010. After the observing campaign we will get new informations.
New informations:
The dust structure is not directed
towards the Sun. Earth based observations are not able to determine the
real direction of the "tail" in space.
I am sure, that ESA and NASA will give us the geometry and more informations of
the dust very soon :) (June, 6
2010)
Comet P/2010 A2, an Activated Asteroid from the Main Asteroid Belt - ING report (July, 23 2010)
Rosetta report of P/2010 A2 (August,29 2010)
During a
meeting of the
German Minor Planet
Group in June 2010 I talked with
Detlef Koschny, an
ESA
astronomer, about his investigations with the
Rosetta probe.
He showed me very impressive images taken by the Rosetta probe in April/May,
showing the comet on a perspective far away from Earth.
The guys from ESA found out, that the "tail" is directed away from the Sun in a
roughly direction of about 45 degrees from the opposite Sun angle.
That means, that the "tail" is not a typical comet tail, because it is not
directed straight away from the Sun like normal comet tails.
ESA found out, that the dust grains of the "tail" have a size of around 1 mm to
1 cm.
(August,11
2010)
Image collection of the Hubble Space Telescope HST, made in the first half of 2010 (October,13 2010)
News of the Rossetta Space Probe (October,13 2010)
Both NASA and ESA scientists came
to the final conclusion, that P/2010 A2 is the remnant of an asteroid collision
occured in early 2009.
Thanks to the discovery of
LINEAR,
we amateurs could observe this event never seen before.
The dust/debris structure is still very constant since three months meanwhile, 43" in PA 288. The object is passing the star cluster NGC 2420.
P/2010 A2 (LINEAR) (C) by Bernhard Haeusler, 2010-04-17 B/W
31 x 2 min. exposure,
2010-04-17 UT 19:19, 12" SCT
f-5.65 + CCD ST10XME
head of
dust structure: 18.34 mag, "tail": 43" in PA 288
sub-solar point position angle: PA 279.6
The dust/debris structure is still very constant, 47" in PA 290.
P/2010 A2 (LINEAR) (C) by Bernhard Haeusler, 2010-04-07 B/W
8 x 2 min. exposure,
2010-04-07 UT 19:08, 12" SCT
f-5.65 + CCD ST10XME
dust structure in the oval: 19.9 mag, "tail": 47" in PA 290
The dust/debris structure is still very constant, 1'03" in PA 286.5.
P/2010 A2 (LINEAR) (C) by Bernhard Haeusler, 2010-04-01 B/W
14 x 2 min. exposure,
2010-04-01 UT 19:19, 12" SCT
f-5.65 + CCD ST10XME
head of the
dust structure on the left: 19.7 mag, "tail": 1'03" in PA 286.5
The dust/debris structure is still very constant, 37 arc sec in
PA 278.
The
image of the Hubble Space Telescope of January,29 2010
is showing the corresponding asteroids on the Eastern part of the dust.
Since this image of the Hubble Space Telescope was taken it is clear,
that the dust/debris/boulder structure is directed relatively to the Sun (Sun Pos.Angle PA 292.3 at Jan, 19
2010).
This means, that the dust/debris of P/2010 A2 (LINEAR) is not
comparable with a "normal" dust tail of a comet, which is normally directed
roughly vice versa to
the Sun Pos. Angle. The ejected material of the collision should be more compact
than comet material.
But it seems, that the dust/debris of P/2010 A2 is influenced
by both the
solar wind and gravitational forces anyway.
At the moment of the assumed collision of two asteroids, the
direction of the dust/debris is influenced by the impact event, off course.
But it is very interesting, that the remaining dust/debris complex is still very constant in shape and orientation.
synchrone-syndyne network (C) by Hiroki Akisawa, Japan
Hiroki Akisawa from Japan calculated
synchrone-syndyne
network by Bessel-Bredikhin theory and fitted
for this image.
Description of his diagram:
Yahoo Comets ML
P/2010 A2 (LINEAR) (C) by Bernhard Haeusler, 2010-03-11 B/W
20 x 3 min. exposure,
2010-03-11 UT 20:32, 12" SCT
f-5.65 + CCD ST10XME
head of the
dust structure on the left: 19.3 mag, "tail": 37" in PA 278�
The Sun Pos.Angle at the time of the exposure was PA 275.7 (See:
HORIZON
Query, QUANTITIES=1,9,16)
Gif animation 20 x 3 minutes in reality, foreshortend to
1.8 seconds
P/2010 A2 in the center left, asteroid 19610 Arthurdent (17.4 mag) on the right upper
corner
The
constitution of the dust/debris/
I.e. the end of C/1999 S4
(and probably the actual end of C/2009 O2 too) was going
on very fast.
The next opposition of P/2010 A2 will occur in May/June 2011. This will bean
interesting opportunity the take more images and to check,
if the structure has changed. Maybe the Solar Wind will
not disperse the destroyed material of the collided
asteroids until next year.
image of Martin Mobberley at March, 7 2010
P/2010 A2 (LINEAR) (C) by Bernhard Haeusler, 2010-03-06 B/W
10 x 5 min. exposure,
2010-03-06 UT 21:42, 12" SCT
f-5.65 + CCD ST10XME
head of the
dust structure on the left: 19.13 mag, "tail": 1'37" in PA 280�
The Sun Pos.Angle at the time of the exposure was PA 275.6 (See:
HORIZON
Query, QUANTITIES=1,9,16)
Development of the structure, period of time: 28 days
The cometary structure is the result of a collision of two asteroids.
First the object was assumed as a new main belt comet.
But soon astronomers of NASA revealed the object as an asteroid suffered a collision
with another object.
P/2010 A2 (LINEAR) (C) by Bernhard Haeusler, 2010-03-04 B/W Gif animation 24 x 5 minutes in reality, foreshortend to 2 seconds
24 x 5 min. exposure,
2010-03-04 UT 22:05, 12" SCT
f-5.65 + CCD ST10XME
dust structure: 42" in PA 278�
full size gif animation 6,6 MB
P/2010 A2 (LINEAR) (C) by Bernhard Haeusler, 2010-02-07 B/W
16 x 5 min. exposure,
2010-02-07 UT 22:27, 12" SCT
f-5.65 + CCD ST10XME
dust structure: 2'41" in PA 278�28'
left image: The inlay above is showing the an enlargement of the original
combined image.
On the inlay down I removed the involved stars around the structure.
One significant knot is marked.
Breaking news of NASA/ESA at February, 2 2010 here and here
image of Gustavo Muler at January, 18 2010
P/2010 A2 (LINEAR) (C) by Bernhard Haeusler, 2010-01-13 B/W
6 x 3 min. exposure,
2010-01-13 UT 02:21, 12" SCT
f-5.65 + CCD ST10XME
17.58 mag, no coma, tail: 1'48" in PA 279.72�
image of Erik Bryssink at January, 12 2010
image of Kevin Heider at January, 12 2010
The 5th Main-Belt comet. Image of the WYNN 3.5 meter telescope, blog of Carl Hergenrother January, 11 2010
image of Francois Kugel at January, 10 2010
image of Gustavo Muler at January, 8 2010