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There'south normally a stark difference between asteroids and comets, only so-called "active asteroids" blur the line. These space rocks produce a cloud of dust and gas every bit they drift effectually the solar system, making them look very comet-similar. Astronomers spotted one of them in 2011, but upon closer inspection, Torso 288P is something completely new — a binary active asteroid.

A comet is essentially a clump of rock and ice that experiences significant out-gassing when it passes through the inner solar system. They're like the icebergs of space. And if comets are icebergs, asteroids are mountains. They're more often than not stone and metal, and don't usually release clouds of dust. There are only around xx agile asteroids (sometimes called primary belt comets) that release clouds of dust and gas, and until recently astronomers idea Body 288P was merely some other to add together to the list.

This object is stuck in the asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter, only its orbit occasionally leaves it in the aforementioned general neighborhood every bit World. In September of 2016, it passed within 124 million miles (200 one thousand thousand kilometers) of Globe, giving astronomers from the Max Planck Institute a gamble to take a closer look. The aging Hubble Space Telescope was trained on 288P, and the newly released images indicate this is a new type of object. 288P is composed of two distinct objects that orbit each other, making it the only binary main chugalug comet known to exist. It's basically two rare things in one.

About binary asteroid systems are composed of one larger object and another smaller one that it captured at some betoken. Equally if 288P wasn't strange enough, the Max Planck Constitute says the 2 objects in this system are roughly the same size — 1 kilometer in diameter. They're likewise orbiting each other at a distance of near 62 miles (100 kilometers). That'south much farther autonomously than most binary asteroids.

The team examining 288P speculates its unusual properties may stem from how it was formed. Intense rotation could have caused a unmarried object to intermission in ii effectually 5,000 years ago. The gas released from the fragments could and then have driven them farther apart over time. Information technology's difficult to know for certain what happened without some other example of this phenomenon, only scientists will continue watching 288P closely. After all, it'south one of a kind for now. Astronomers volition also exist searching for other active asteroids out there, and maybe some of them volition finish up being binary objects as well.

Now read: The 25 All-time Hubble Space Telescope Images