Astronomers Catch a "Dark Comet" Red-Handed
Astronomers have identified a 'dark comet' that was previously misclassified as a standard asteroid due to its faint coma. The object, 1998 SH2, exhibited unexpected orbital behavior that caused it to be missed by radar observations, highlighting the challenges in tracking near-Earth objects.
Why it matters
Improving the detection and classification of near-Earth objects is essential for planetary defense and understanding the composition of the solar system.
Our ability to track and visualize small rocks in space is still improving. And occasionally we’ll find a space rock that will remind us of that fact. One such rock is detailed in a new paper, led by Davide Farnocchia of NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, and recently published in Nature Astronomy, where the research team discovered what they thought was a normal, run of the mill asteroid, was actually a “dark comet”.
The line between asteroids and comets has always been a little blurry, but astronomy textbooks usually differentiate them by showing that a comet has a “coma” - a halo of gas and dust surrounding it - whereas an asteroid does not. But in some cases, the coma that would differentiate between one categorization and the other is so small or faint it's almost impossible to see.
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