• DOI:10.1126/SCIENCE.1125150
Corpus ID: 29242874

A Population of Comets in the Main Asteroid Belt

@article{Hsieh2006APO,
  title={A Population of Comets in the Main Asteroid Belt},
  author={H. Hsieh and D. Jewitt},
  journal={Science},
  year={2006},
  volume={312},
  pages={561 - 563}
}

H. Hsieh, D. Jewitt

Published 2006

Physics, Medicine

Science

Comets are icy bodies that sublimate and become active when close to the Sun. They are believed to originate in two cold reservoirs beyond the orbit of Neptune: the Kuiper Belt (equilibrium temperatures of ∼40 kelvin) and the Oort Cloud (∼10 kelvin). We present optical data showing the existence of a population of comets originating in a third reservoir: the main asteroid belt. The main-belt comets are unlike the Kuiper Belt and Oort Cloud comets in that they likely formed where they currently… CONTINUE READING

View on AAAS

ifa.hawaii.edu

Save to Library

Create Alert

Cite

Launch Research Feed