A Population of Comets in the Main Asteroid Belt

Hsieh, Henry H.; Jewitt, David

doi:10.1126/science.1125150

Cited by 449 publications

(367 citation statements)

References 22 publications

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“…We expect that this will allow the identification of dozens of new young asteroid families and with the addition of five filter measurements we will be able to refine space weathering rate estimates Nesvorný et al(2002). Simple extrapolation of the discovery rates of MB comets Hsieh & Jewitt(2006) suggest that we may identify hundreds of this new class of objects. Perhaps most interesting of all is the opportunity of identifying collisions between MB objects too small to otherwise be observed.…”

Section: Pan-starrs and The Solar Systemmentioning

confidence: 99%

The next decade of Solar System discovery with Pan-STARRS

et al. 2006

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Abstract.The Panoramic Survey Telescope and Rapid Response System (Pan-STARRS) at the University of Hawaii's Institute for Astronomy is a funded project to repeatedly survey the entire visible sky to faint limiting magnitudes (mR ∼ 24). It will be composed of four 1.8m diameter apertures each outfitted with fast readout orthogonal transfer Giga-pixel CCD cameras. A single aperture prototype telescopes is achieved first-light in the second half of 2006 with the full system becoming available a few years later. Roughly 60% of the surveying will be suitable for discovery of new solar system objects and it will cover the ecliptic, opposition and low solarelongation regions. In a single lunation Pan-STARRS will detect about five times more solar system objects than the entire currently known sample. Within its first year Pan-STARRS will have detected 20,000 Kuiper Belt Objects and by the end of its ten year operational lifetime we expect to have found 10 7 Main Belt objects and achieve ∼90% observational completeness for all NEOs larger than ∼300m diameter. With these data in hand Pan-STARRS will revolutionize our knowledge of the contents and dynamical structure of the solar system.Keywords. Keyword1, keyword2, keyword3, etc. Pan-STARRS OverviewThe conceptual design of the Pan-STARRS system derives from a desire to survey the sky as deeply, rapidly and inexpensively as possible. Relatively simple technological and economic arguments suggest that the minimum cost for a surveying system is achieved with telescope mirrors in the range of 1.5m to 2.5m diameter. Simply put, it is more cost effective to build more small telescopes to reach the same effective limiting magnitude and sky-coverage as a massive system due to the fact that duplicating a small system increases costs linearly while the cost of a single large system increases as a power of its light gathering ability. Another major benefit of a distributed aperture system is the reduced time to deployment over a monolithic system with equivalent etendue. Thus, Pan-STARRS opted to develop a design for a coordinated set of four small telescopes with the capability of a large synoptic survey system.A prototype single Pan-STARRS telescope (PS1) on Haleakala is nearing completion and is expected to start survey operations in mid to late 2007. It is designed to act as a test-bed for the commissioning, testing, and calibration of the Pan-STARRS hardware and software in anticipation of the full (four aperture) Pan-STARRS array. PS1 uses a 1.8m primary mirror to image a roughly 7 square degree field on a 1.4 Gigapixel CCD camera. With 0.26 arcsecond pixels, the images from PS1 will be well-matched to the sub-arcsecond seeing of Haleakala. The large entendue of PS1 will make it the most † for the Pan-STARRS team.

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Section: Pan-starrs and The Solar Systemmentioning

confidence: 99%

The next decade of Solar System discovery with Pan-STARRS

et al. 2006

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“…Several main-belt comets (MBC) (Hsieh & Jewitt 2006) have been dynamically linked to the Themis family (Hsieh 2009;Novaković et al 2012). The source of sublimation in these MBCs is attributed to water ice buried beneath a layer of regolith several meters thick (Schorghofer 2008;Prialnik & Rosenberg 2009).…”

Section: Aqueous Alteration In the Themis Parent Bodymentioning

confidence: 99%

Space weathering trends among carbonaceous asteroids

Kaluna

Masiero

Meech

2016

Icarus

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We present visible spectroscopic and albedo data of the 2.3 Gyr old Themis family and the <10 Myr old Beagle sub-family. The slope and albedo variations between these two families indicate C-complex asteroids become redder and darker in response to space weathering. Our observations of Themis family members confirm previously observed trends where phyllosilicate absorption features are less common among small diameter objects. Similar trends in the albedos of large (>15 km) and small (≤15 km) Themis members suggest these phyllosilicate feature and albedo trends result from regolith variations as a function of diameter. Observations of the Beagle asteroids show a small, but notable fraction of members with phyllosilicate features. The presence of phyllosilicates and the dynamical association of the main-belt comet 133P/Elst-Pizarro with the Beagle family imply the Beagle parent body was a heterogenous mixture of ice and aqueously altered minerals.Subject headings: main belt asteroids, carbonaceous asteroids, space weathering

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“…Meanwhile, many extrasolar systems with gas giant planets close to their stars have been discovered, presenting a challenge to formation models (e.g., Mayor and Queloz 1995;Winn and Fabrycky 2015). Finally, recent observations have uncovered evidence of ice in unexpected places in the inner Solar System, including the population of 'Main-Belt Comets' (MBCs) which have stable asteroidlike orbits, inside the snow line, but which demonstrate comet-like activity (Hsieh and Jewitt 2006).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

The Main Belt Comets and ice in the Solar System

Snodgrass

Agarwal

Combi

et al. 2017

Astron Astrophys Rev

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We review the evidence for buried ice in the asteroid belt; specifically the questions around the so-called Main Belt Comets (MBCs). We summarise the evidence for water throughout the Solar System, and describe the various methods for detecting it, including remote sensing from ultraviolet to radio wavelengths. We review progress in the first decade of study of MBCs, including observations, modelling of ice survival, and discussion on their origins. We then look at which methods will likely be most effective for further progress, including the key challenge of direct detection of (escaping) water in these bodies.

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A Population of Comets in the Main Asteroid Belt

Cited by 449 publications

References 22 publications

The next decade of Solar System discovery with Pan-STARRS

The next decade of Solar System discovery with Pan-STARRS

Space weathering trends among carbonaceous asteroids

The Main Belt Comets and ice in the Solar System

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