[BAA Comets] Comet P/2013 P5: An asteroid collision or what?
Richard Miles
rmiles.btee at btinternet.com
Tue Aug 27 17:49:02 BST 2013
Comet P/2013 P5 (PANSTARRS) announced today on MPEC 2013-Q37 and CBET 3639 has unusual orbital characteristics akin to those of P/2010 A2 (LINEAR) which is considered to be cometary owing to an asteroid-asteroid collision (although rotationally-induced disruption of a single asteroid is not entirely ruled out).
Compare these orbital statistics:
Comet: P/2010 A2 P/2013 P5
q(AU) 2.004 1.934
e 0.125 0.117
i(deg) 5.26 4.98
P(yr) 3.47 3.24
These two objects are uncannily similar and quite unlike most short-period comets. Might these two objects be related in some way? Certainly mysterious.
CBET 3639 states that "Follow-up exposures by M. Micheli (measured with D. J. Tholen) using the 2.24-m University of Hawaii reflector at Mauna Kea on Aug. 16.5 UT show that the head of the comet is fairly stellar in appearance, but there is a tail at least 90" long in position angle 238 deg. Have yet to see an image but it sounds eerily reminiscent of P/2010 A2 !
Maybe a target for HST so as to compare it with P/2010 A2 (LINEAR).
Richard Miles
BAA
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