Metamorphoses of the space body located between Mars and Jupiter, spotted by the Hubble telescope
Comet 288P was the name of the object discovered in November 2006 thanks to the Spacewatch and Pan-STARRS programs. Subsequent observations showed that it is strange - it changes shape, becoming now more, now less. Alien spaceship? Not. But not a comet either.
The Hubble Space Telescope helped to understand the nature of metamorphosis. It turned out that the object consists of two blocks of the same size, which rotate relative to each other at a distance of about 100 kilometers. That is, it is a so-called binary object. After confirming this, NASA astronomers renamed it as asteroid 300163 (2006 VW139).
You can see how the object changes shape.
Scientists believe that the lump comes from the Main-belt, which lies between Mars and Jupiter. Previously, the lump flew alone. But about 5 thousand years ago, it collapsed - from the fact that it rotated very quickly. And now there are two of them.
The newly minted asteroid nevertheless continues to behave at times like a comet - it releases its tail, approaching the Sun. In 2016, when it was released again, it was properly reviewed. Astronomers believe that the tail creates evaporating ice that was previously inside the block and has now been exposed.
NASA scientists spoke about the asteroid-comet on their website. We emphasized that this is the first time they see such a "structure", but they did not tell about the size of the blocks that make it up and whether they are dangerous for us.
VLADIMIR LAGOVSKY
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