Pitchers at link:

A strange asteroid that appears to have multiple rotating tails has been spotted with NASA’s Hubble telescope between Mars and Jupiter, astronomers say.

Instead of appearing as a small point of light, like most asteroids, this one has half a dozen comet-like dust tails radiating out like spokes on a wheel, said the report in Astrophysical Journal Letters.

“It’s hard to believe we’re looking at an asteroid,” said lead investigator David Jewitt, a professor in the University of California Los Angeles Department of Earth and Space Sciences.

“We were dumbfounded when we saw it. Amazingly, its tail structures change dramatically in just 13 days as it belches out dust.”

The object has been named P/2013 P5, and astronomers believe it has been spewing dust for at least five months.

The asteroid may have started spinning so fast that it began to disintegrate, scientists say.

They don’t think the tails are a result of an impact, because that would cause dust to spray out all at once.

Its multiple tails were discovered in images taken by NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope on September 10, 2013, after first being spotted with a telescope in Hawaii.

Jewitt said the object may have come from an asteroid collision 200 million years ago. Its pattern of dispersing dust in fits and bursts may be how it slowly dies.

“In astronomy, where you find one, you eventually find a whole bunch more,” he said. “This is an amazing object and almost certainly the first of many more to come.”

Read more: http://www.smh.com.au/technology/sci-tech/sixtailed-asteroid-stuns-scientists-20131108-2×5ld.html#ixzz2k0sRUn73

might be a better link

What’s the difference between an asteroid and a comet?

Divine Angel said:

What’s the difference between an asteroid and a comet?

The main difference between an asteroid and a comet is what they are made of. Asteroids are made up of metals and rocky material, while comets are made up of ice, dust and rocky material. Both of these space objects were formed during the earliest times of the solar system, around 4.5 billion years ago. Asteroids formed much closer to the Sun, where it was too warm for ices to remain solid. Comets formed farther from the sun where ices would not melt. Comets, which approach the Sun, lose material with each orbit because some of their ice melts and vaporizes to form a tail.

A few other important differences between an asteroid and a comet exist. Obviously, comets have tails and asteroids do not. (WRONG! See OP) The heat from the Sun causes ice and other materials on a comet’s surface to heat up until they vaporize. That vapor is what is seen as the comets tail. Another difference is in their orbital patterns. Comets tend to have very extended and elongated orbits, many times going more than 50,000 AU from the Sun (1 AU, or astronomical unit, equals the distance from the Earth to the Sun).

Asteroids tend to have shorter, more circular orbits and they seem to want to group together in belts.

Another difference between an asteroid and a comet is in the numbers of each. There are only 3,572 known comets, but there are many millions of asteroids. Some as small as dust particles.

Read more: http://www.universetoday.com/33006/what-is-the-difference-between-asteroids-and-comets/#ixzz2k8AOTFC0

Divine Angel said:

What’s the difference between an asteroid and a comet?

In this case we’re talking about a comet that orbits within the asteroid belt. An asteroid is mostly made of rock. A comet is mostly made of ice. Comets are all generated further from the Sun than asteroids, but on coming into the inner solar system are sometimes deflected into asteroid-like orbits by gravitational interaction with Jupiter.

Quite a few comets within the asteroid belt have been discovered in the past few years. Here are six:

>In this case we’re talking about a comet that orbits within the asteroid belt.

Apparently not. It’s being described as a Flora family asteroid that experienced a collision some time ago and is now releasing dust due to rotational instability.

(Rump.)

Opps.