Astronomers spot a ‘first-of-its-kind’ asteroid near Jupiter

Team Udayavani, May 26, 2020, 12:32 PM IST

Astronomers have discovered a ‘first-of-its-kind’ object near Jupiter’s orbit, which appears to be a cross between an asteroid and a comet

The Institute for Astronomy at the University of Hawaii’s Asteroid Terrestrial-impact Last Alert System (ATLAS) has revealed that a new asteroid with a comet-like-tail has been discovered moving in the same orbit travelled by Jupiter around the sun

The ‘2019 LD2’ is the only ‘active’ Jupiter Trojan known to astronomers. Trojans are a large group of asteroids located in the same orbital path as Jupiter and are typically inert.

Although, More data will be needed to determine just what led to this one-of-a-kind finding, the university’s Institute for Astronomy suggested that Jupiter might have recently captured the asteroid from a distant orbit, or that a collision with another space rock might have exposed ice that was previously ‘safe’ from the Sun’s heat