Hubble image archive
Active Asteroid P/2013 P5
This NASA Hubble Space Telescope set of images reveals a never-before-seen set of six comet-like tails radiating from a body in the asteroid belt, designated P/2013 P5.The asteroid was discovered as an unusually fuzzy-looking object with the Panoramic Survey Telescope and Rapid R...
- Date
- Jan 1, 2013
- Mission
- Hubble Space Telescope
- Archive ID
- hubblesite-images-2013-52-3265-image
This NASA Hubble Space Telescope set of images reveals a never-before-seen set of six comet-like tails radiating from a body in the asteroid belt, designated P/2013 P5.
The asteroid was discovered as an unusually fuzzy-looking object with the Panoramic Survey Telescope and Rapid Response System (Pan-STARRS) survey telescope in Hawaii. The multiple tails were discovered in Hubble images taken on Sept. 10, 2013. When Hubble returned to the asteroid on Sept. 23, the asteroid's appearance had totally changed. It looked as if the entire structure had swung around.
One interpretation is that the asteroid's rotation rate has been increased to the point where dust is falling off the surface and escaping into space where the pressure of sunlight sweeps out fingerlike tails. According to this theory, the asteroid's spin has been accelerated by the gentle push of sunlight. The object, estimated to be no more than 1,400 feet across, has ejected dust for at least five months, based on analysis of the tail structure.
These visible-light, false-color images were taken with Hubble's Wide Field Camera 3.
Credits
NASA, ESA, and D. Jewitt (UCLA)Image Details
| About The Object | |
|---|---|
| Object Name | P/2013 P5 |
| Object Description | Active Asteroid |
| Distance | At the time of the Hubble observations in September 2013, P/2013 P5 was 1.1 astronomical units (112 million miles) from Earth and 2.1 astronomical units (195 million miles) from the Sun. |
| About The Data | |
| Data Description | The image was created from Hubble data from proposal : D. Jewitt (University of California, Los Angeles), J. Agarwal (Max Planck Institute for Solar System Research), H. Weaver (JHU/APL), M. Mutchler (STScI), and S. Larson (University of Arizona). |
| Instrument | HST>WFC3/UVIS |
| Exposure Dates | September 10, 2013, and September 23, 2013 |
| Filters | F350LP (long pass) |
| About The Image | |
| Color Info | This image was originally black and white and recorded only overall brightness. These brightness values were translated into a range of bluish hues. Such color "maps" can be useful in helping to distinguish subtly varying brightness in an image. |
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Source
Image and source material are credited to the official mission archive linked below.
View on NASA.gov