{"id":1920650,"date":"2023-04-27T23:58:22","date_gmt":"2023-04-28T03:58:22","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/discovery-of-strange-asteroid-properties-upends-previous-assumptions-about-comets\/"},"modified":"2023-04-28T00:00:04","modified_gmt":"2023-04-28T04:00:04","slug":"discovery-of-strange-asteroid-properties-upends-previous-assumptions-about-comets","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/discovery-of-strange-asteroid-properties-upends-previous-assumptions-about-comets\/","title":{"rendered":"Discovery of strange asteroid properties upends previous assumptions about comets"},"content":{"rendered":"<aside class=\"mashsb-container mashsb-main mashsb-stretched\"><div class=\"mashsb-box\"><div class=\"mashsb-count mash-medium\" style=\"float:left\"><div class=\"counts mashsbcount\">20<\/div><span class=\"mashsb-sharetext\">SHARES<\/span><\/div><div class=\"mashsb-buttons\"><a class=\"mashicon-facebook mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/sharer.php?u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.conservativenewsdaily.net%2Fbreaking-news%2Fdiscovery-of-strange-asteroid-properties-upends-previous-assumptions-about-comets%2F\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Facebook<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-twitter mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/intent\/tweet?text=&amp;url=https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/?p=1920650&amp;via=ConservNewsDly\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Twitter<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-subscribe mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"#\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Subscribe<\/span><\/a><div class=\"onoffswitch2 mash-medium mashsb-noshadow\" style=\"display:none\"><\/div><\/div>\n            <\/div>\n                <div style=\"clear:both\"><\/div><\/aside>\n            <!-- Share buttons by mashshare.net - Version: 4.0.47--><div class=\"RichTextArticleBody-body\">\n<h2>Strange Asteroid Challenges Assumptions About Comets<\/h2>\n<p><span class=\"ArticlePage-articleBody-firstLetter\">R<\/span>ecent research into a strange asteroid has caused scientists to question previously assumed properties of many comets.<\/p>\n<p>Scientists have long been monitoring asteroid 3200 Phaethon, an asteroid that acts like a comet. But a recent <a class=\"Link\" href=\"https:\/\/iopscience.iop.org\/article\/10.3847\/PSJ\/acc866\">study<\/a> published in the <i>Planetary Science Journal<\/i> suggests that it does not emit a tail of dust, as comets do. Instead, it emits a tail of sodium gas.<\/p>\n<h3>Not Your Typical Dusty Comet<\/h3>\n<p>&#8220;Our analysis shows that Phaethon\u2019s comet-like activity cannot be explained by any kind of dust,\u201d California Institute of Technology Ph.D. student Qicheng Zhang, the lead author of the study, <a class=\"Link\" href=\"https:\/\/www.nasa.gov\/feature\/goddard\/2023\/sun\/asteroid-s-comet-like-tail-is-not-made-of-dust-solar-observatories-reveal\">told<\/a> the <a class=\"Link\" href=\"https:\/\/www.washingtonexaminer.com\/tag\/nasa\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">National Aeronautics and Space Agency<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>Suspicions began in 2018 when imaging from NASA\u2019s Parker Solar Probe showed the &#8220;tail&#8221; from Phaethon emitted much more material than would be possible if it were just dust. Zhang&#8217;s team hypothesized that the material could be sodium gas.<\/p>\n<h3>Observing Phaethon&#8217;s Passing<\/h3>\n<p>The team utilized the Solar and Heliospheric Observatory (SOHO) spacecraft to observe Phaethon&#8217;s 2022 passing by Earth. The craft had color filters that would detect different materials. Imaging found that the tail showed up when imaging looking for sodium was used, but none appeared when imaging looking for dust was used.<\/p>\n<h3>Implications for Other Terrestrial Objects<\/h3>\n<p>The discovery suggests that many other terrestrial objects thought to be comets may have the same properties.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cA lot of those other sunskirting \u2018comets\u2019 may also not be \u2018comets\u2019 in the usual, icy body sense, but may instead be rocky asteroids like Phaethon heated up by the Sun,\u201d Zhang told NASA.<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><b><a class=\"Link\" href=\"https:\/\/www.washingtonexaminer.com\/policy\/space\/hubble-black-hole-blitzing-contrail-stars\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">HUBBLE SPACE TELESCOPE CAPTURES BLACK HOLE BARRELING ACROSS SPACE<\/a><\/b><\/li>\n<li><b><a class=\"Link\" href=\"https:\/\/www.washingtonexaminer.com\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">CLICK HERE TO READ MORE FROM THE WASHINGTON EXAMINER<\/a><\/b><\/li>\n<\/ul><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Recent research into a strange asteroid has caused scientists to question previously assumed properties of many comets. Scientists have long been monitoring asteroid 3200 Phaethon, an asteroid that acts like a comet. But a recent study published in the Planetary Science Journal suggests that it does not emit a tail of dust, as comets do.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1932558,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mo_disable_npp":"","fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/cndimages.nyc3.digitaloceanspaces.com\/breaking-news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/01\/IMG_2758-scaled-1.jpg","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[538],"tags":[24717,21161,25349,6970,8389,10741,8023,25348],"class_list":["post-1920650","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-washington-examiner","tag-assumptions","tag-asteroid","tag-comets","tag-discovery","tag-previous","tag-properties","tag-strange","tag-upends"],"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/cndimages.nyc3.digitaloceanspaces.com\/breaking-news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/01\/IMG_2758-scaled-1.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1920650","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1920650"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1920650\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1932558"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1920650"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1920650"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1920650"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}