Jupiter is known for trapping objects that dare to get too close to the gas giant and its enormous gravity. Asteroids known as the Jupiter Trojans are a large group of space rocks that have been trapped by the planet and usually remain in a stable orbit near one of Jupiter’s Lagrangian points.
But now the Hubble Space Telescope has spotted a comet near Jupiter’s Trojan asteroid population. This is the first time a comet has been found in this region, and the team of scientists studying the object, named P / 2019 LD2 (LD2), believe the unexpected comet is just a passing visitor.
Researchers believe that the monster planet’s gravitational tug will eventually throw the comet back into its original orbit toward the sun.
“The visitor had to have entered Jupiter’s orbit on exactly the right trajectory to get this type of configuration that gives it the appearance of sharing its orbit with the planet,” said Caltech senior Hubble researcher Bryce Bolin . “We are investigating how it was captured by Jupiter and ended up under the Trojans. But we think it might be related to the fact that there was a pretty close encounter with Jupiter. “
This image is an exposure captured by the WFC3 instrument on the Hubble Space Telescope from P / 2019 LD2 (LD2) when it was 4.02 AU from Earth (374 million miles). Recognition:. NASA, ESA, STScI, B. Bolin (IPAC / Caltech)
P / 2019 LD2 (LD2) belongs to a class of icy bodies normally found in the space between Jupiter and Neptune, known as centaurs. Centaurs become active when they approach the sun and warm up. Then they dynamically become more comet-like.
The team’s observations with Hubble show that the object is showing signs of becoming an active comet, sprouting a long tail, outgassing jets of material, and wrapping itself in a coma of dust and gas.
“Only Hubble could see active comet-like features that far away in such high detail, and the images clearly show those features, such as: B. A tail about 400,000 miles long and high resolution features near the nucleus due to a coma and jet, ”Bolin said.
The main asteroid belt is between Mars and Jupiter, and Trojan asteroids lead and follow Jupiter. Scientists now know that asteroids were the original “building blocks” of the inner planets. The remainder are airless rocks that do not adhere to each other and became larger bodies when the solar system formed 4.6 billion years ago. CREDITS: NASA, ESA, and J. Olmsted (STScI)
The object was first seen by the University of Hawaii’s ATLAS (Asteroid Terrestrial Impact Last Alert System) telescopes in early June 2019. Several other telescopes, including the Spitzer Space Telescope (shortly before its retirement), performed follow-up observations and provided clues about the composition of the comet-like object and the gases that power its activity. Visible light images from Hubble provided further details.
The research team ran computer simulations of the projected path of P / 2019 LD2 (LD2), which showed that the object was likely swung near Jupiter about two years ago. The planet then gravity booted the headstrong visitor to the co-orbital position of the Trojan asteroid group and guided Jupiter approximately 437 million miles.
“The cool thing is, you actually catch Jupiter spinning this object around, changing its orbital behavior, and bringing it into the inner system,” said team member Carey Lisse of the Johns Hopkins University’s Applied Physics Laboratory (APL). “Jupiter controls what happens to comets when they enter the internal system by changing their orbits.”
No spacecraft has yet visited the Trojan asteroids. Later that year, a mission called Lucy will fly seven Trojan asteroids as well as one main belt asteroid to study the diversity of this population in a single 12-year record mission. The Lucy spacecraft launch window will open on October 16, 2021.
Further reading:
Article published in the Astronomical Journal
Press release on the Hubble Space Telescope
Article: Jupiter’s Trojan asteroids offer surprises even before NASA’s Lucy mission has a chance to visit them.
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