Hawaii Trails Project

DOI

The mysterious solar system object 133P/(7968) Elst-Pizarro is dynamically asteroidal, yet displays recurrent comet-like dust emission. Two scenarios were hypothesized to explain this unusual behavior: (1) 133P is a classical comet from the outer solar system that has evolved onto a main-belt orbit, or (2) 133P is a dynamically ordinary main-belt asteroid on which subsurface ice has recently been exposed. If (1) is correct, the expected rarity of a dynamical transition onto an asteroidal orbit implies that 133P could be alone in the main belt. In contrast, if (2) is correct, other icy main-belt objects should exist and could also exhibit cometary activity. Believing 133P to be a dynamically ordinary, yet icy main-belt asteroid, I set out to test the primary prediction of the hypothesis: that 133P-like objects should be common and could be found by an appropriately designed observational survey.

Identifier
DOI http://doi.org/10.26093/cds/vizier.35051297
Source https://dc.g-vo.org/rr/q/lp/custom/CDS.VizieR/J/A+A/505/1297
Related Identifier https://cdsarc.cds.unistra.fr/viz-bin/cat/J/A+A/505/1297
Related Identifier http://vizier.cds.unistra.fr/viz-bin/VizieR-2?-source=J/A+A/505/1297
Metadata Access http://dc.g-vo.org/rr/q/pmh/pubreg.xml?verb=GetRecord&metadataPrefix=oai_b2find&identifier=ivo://CDS.VizieR/J/A+A/505/1297
Provenance
Creator Hsieh H.H.
Publisher CDS
Publication Year 2009
Rights https://cds.unistra.fr/vizier-org/licences_vizier.html
OpenAccess true
Contact CDS support team <cds-question(at)unistra.fr>
Representation
Resource Type Dataset; AstroObjects
Discipline Astrophysics and Astronomy; Natural Sciences; Observational Astronomy; Physics; Solar System Astronomy