Active asteroids behave dynamically like asteroids but display comet-like comae. These objects are poorly understood, with fewer than 60 identified to date.
Minor planets with activity discoveries resulting from the Active Asteroids project: (a-f) active asteroids and main-belt comet candidates; (g) an active Centaur; (h-l) active active quasi-Hilda asteroids; (m-t) Jupiter-family comets. Image credit: Chandler et al., 10.3847/1538-3881/ad1de2.
Active asteroids appear to have tails like comets, but follow orbits predominately within the main asteroid belt.
The first active asteroid with a pronounced tail — the near-Earth asteroid (4015) Wilson-Harrington — was discovered in 1949.
In the seven intervening decades, fewer than 60 asteroids have been found to be active, a tiny fraction of the 1.3 million known minor planets, and the vast majority of discoveries have taken place in just the last 25 years.
The citizen science project Active Asteroids, a NASA Partner, is designed to find these rare objects.
Launched on August 31, 2021, the project is hosted on the Zooniverse online platform and has over 8,300 volunteers.
To find new active asteroids, the volunteers combed through 430,000 images taken by the Dark Energy Camera (DECam) instrument on the 4-m Blanco telescope at the Cerro Tololo Inter-American Observatory.
“For an amateur astronomer like me it’s a dream come true,” said volunteer Virgilio Gonano from Udine, Italy.
“Congratulations to all the staff and the friends that also check the images!”
The volunteers were able to identify previously unknown activity on 15 asteroids, plus one Centaur, that were thought to be asteroidal (i.e., inactive).
“I have been a member of the Active Asteroids team since its first batch of data,” said volunteer Tiffany Shaw-Diaz from Dayton, Ohio, the United States.
“And to say that this project has become a significant part of my life is an understatement.”
“I look forward to classifying subjects each day, as long as time or health permits, and I am beyond honored to work with such esteemed scientists on a regular basis.”
The project’s new paper was published in the Astronomical Journal.
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Colin Orion Chandler et al. 2024. The Active Asteroids Citizen Science Program: Overview and First Results. AJ 167, 156; doi: 10.3847/1538-3881/ad1de2
Source : Breaking Science News