The Active Asteroids

Abstract

Some asteroids eject dust, producing transient, comet-like comae and tails; these are the active asteroids. The causes of activity in this newly-identified population are many and varied. They include impact ejection and disruption, rotational instabilities, electrostatic repulsion, radiation pressure sweeping, dehydration stresses and thermal fracture, in addition to the sublimation of asteroidal ice. These processes were either unsuspected or thought to lie beyond the realm of observation before the discovery of asteroid activity. Scientific interest in the active asteroids lies in their promise to open new avenues into the direct study of asteroid destruction, the production of interplanetary debris, the abundance of asteroid ice and the origin of terrestrial planet volatiles.

25 pages, 18 figures; This chapter is to appear in the book ASTEROIDS IV, part of the University of Arizona Space Science Series, edited by P. Michel, F. DeMeo and W. Bottke

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• The ANTARES Astronomical Time-Domain Event Broker
• Potential Jupiter-Family Comet Contamination of the Main Asteroid Belt
• Small Solar System Bodies as granular media
• Solar System Science with ESA Euclid
• Sublimation-induced orbital perturbations of extrasolar active asteroids and comets: application to white dwarf systems
• The Castalia Mission to Main Belt Comet 133P/Elst-Pizarro
• BlueMUSE: Project Overview and Science Cases
• Low thermal conductivity of the superfast rotator (499998) 2011 PT
• The Reactivation of Main-Belt Comet 324P/La Sagra (P/2010 R2)
• Initial Characterization of Active Transitioning Centaur, P/2019 LD2 (ATLAS), using Hubble, Spitzer, ZTF, Keck, APO and GROWTH Visible & Infrared Imaging and Spectroscopy
• Activity of the first interstellar comet 2I/Borisov around perihelion: Results from Indian observatories
• CASTAway: An Asteroid Main Belt Tour and Survey
• Asteroid-Comet Continuum Objects in the Solar System
• Physical Characterization of Main-Belt Comet (248370) 2005 QN173
• Insights into planet formation from debris disks: I. The solar system as an archetype for planetesimal evolution
• Dust modelling and a dynamical study of comet 41P/Tuttle-Giacobini-Kresak during its 2017 perihelion passage
• Dust environment of active asteroids P/2019 A4 (PANSTARRS) and P/2021 A5 (PANSTARRS)
• Photometric and dynamic characterisation of active asteroid (248370) 2005 QN173
• Characterizing the Daytime Sextantids Meteor Shower and Unveiling the Nature of the Phaethon-Geminid Stream Complex
• Main-belt comets: sublimation-driven activity in the asteroid belt
• Not So Fast: A New Catalog of Meteor Persistent Trains
• Photometry of asteroids (5141), (43032), (85953), (259221), and (363599) observed at Pic du Midi Observatory
• Recurrent Cometary Activity Discovered on Quasi-Hilda Jupiter Family Comet 362P/(457175) 2008 GO98
• Predictions for Dusty Mass Loss from Asteroids during Close Encounters with Solar Probe Plus
• A simple and effective parametrisation for Earth-impacting orbits