Intermittent Dust Mass Loss from Activated Asteroid P/2013 P5 (PANSTARRS)

Bibcode
2014ApJ...781..118M
DOI
10.1088/0004-637X/781/2/118
Pozuelos, F.; Cabrera-Lavers, A.; Álvarez-Iglesias, C.; Licandro, J.; Moreno, F.
Bibliographical reference

The Astrophysical Journal, Volume 781, Issue 2, article id. 118, 5 pp. (2014).

Advertised on:
2
2014
Journal
The Astrophysical Journal
Number of authors
5
IAC number of authors
3
Citations
19
Refereed citations
17
Description
We present observations and models of the dust environment of activated asteroid P/2013 P5 (PANSTARRS). The object displayed a complex morphology during the observations, with the presence of multiple tails. We combined our own observations, all made with instrumentation attached to the 10.4 m Gran Telescopio Canarias on La Palma, with previously published Hubble Space Telescope images to build a model aimed at fitting all the observations. Altogether, the data cover a full three month period of observations which can be explained by intermittent dust loss. The most plausible scenario is that of an asteroid rotating with the spinning axis oriented perpendicular to the orbit plane and losing mass from the equatorial region, consistent with rotational break-up. Assuming that the ejection velocity of the particles (v ~ 0.02-0.05 m s–1) corresponds to the escape velocity, the object diameter is constrained to ~30-130 m for bulk densities 3000-1000 kg m–3.
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Exoplanets and Astrobiology

The search for life in the universe has been driven by recent discoveries of planets around other stars (known as exoplanets), becoming one of the most active fields in modern astrophysics. The growing number of new exoplanets discovered in recent years and the recent advance on the study of their atmospheres are not only providing new valuable

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Minor Bodies of the Solar System

This project studies the physical and compositional properties of the so-called minor bodies of the Solar System, that includes asteroids, icy objects, and comets. Of special interest are the trans-neptunian objects (TNOs), including those considered the most distant objects detected so far (Extreme-TNOs or ETNOs); the comets and the comet-asteroid

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In progress
Type
Refereed
Methods
Minor planets
Asteroids
Exoplanetary Systems & Solar System (SEYSS)

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