311P/PanSTARRS
Sign in to saveAlso known as P/2013 P5 (PanSTARRS)
311P/PanSTARRS, also known as P/2013 P5 (PanSTARRS), is an active asteroid and Encke-type comet discovered by Bryce T. Bolin using the Pan-STARRS telescope on 27 August 2013. Observations made by the Hubble Space Telescope revealed that it had six comet-like tails. The tails are suspected to be streams of material ejected by the asteroid as a result of a rubble pile asteroid spinning fast enough to remove material from it. This is similar to 331P/Gibbs, which was found to be a quickly-spinning rubble pile as well.
Key facts
- Comet.name
- 311P/PanSTARRS
- Comet.image
- Asteroid P2013 P5 v2.jpg
- Comet.caption
- Comet 311P/PanSTARRS imaged by the Hubble Space Telescope on 10–23 September 2013
- Comet.discoverer
- Bryce T. Bolin
- Comet.discovery_site
- Haleakala Observatory
- Comet.discovery_date
- 27 August 2013
- Comet.mpc_name
- P/2013 P5
- Comet.epoch
- 29 April 2017 (JD 2457872.5)
- Comet.observation_arc
- 20.29 years
- Comet.obs
- 272
- Comet.earliest_precovery_date
- 17 January 2005
- Comet.perihelion
- 1.936 AU
- Comet.aphelion
- 2.442 AU
- Comet.semimajor
- 2.189 AU
- Comet.eccentricity
- 0.11567
- Comet.period
- 3.238 years
- Comet.avg_speed
- 0.304°/d
- Comet.inclination
- 4.966°
via Wikipedia infobox
Wikidata facts
- Parent body
- Sun
- Orbital period
- 1182.760698542421
- Image
- Asteroid P2013 P5 v2.jpg
Show 15 more facts
- orbital inclination
- 4.966392387174035
- Commons category
- P/2013 P5
- time of discovery or invention
- 2013-08-15
- discoverer or inventor
- Pan-STARRS
- orbital eccentricity
- 0.1156926762017333
- provisional designation
- 311P/2013 P5
- absolute magnitude
- 19.0
- epoch
- March 6, 2017
- semi-major axis of an orbit
- 2.188764177281745
- periapsis
- 1.935540192037535
- apoapsis
- 2.441988162525956
- longitude of ascending node
- 279.2621383082477
- argument of periapsis
- 144.0041487030205
- mean anomaly
- 321.4362516250485
- time of periapsis
- 2457945.1991276843
Sources (2)
via Wikidata · CC0
~3 min read
Encyclopedic overview
7 sectionsContents
- Physical characteristics
- Possible satellite
- Exploration
- See also
- Notes
- References
- External links
311P/PanSTARRS, also known as P/2013 P5 (PanSTARRS), is an active asteroid and Encke-type comet discovered by Bryce T. Bolin using the Pan-STARRS telescope on 27 August 2013. Observations made by the Hubble Space Telescope revealed that it had six comet-like tails. The tails are suspected to be streams of material ejected by the asteroid as a result of a rubble pile asteroid spinning fast enough to remove material from it. This is similar to 331P/Gibbs, which was found to be a quickly-spinning rubble pile as well.
Three-dimensional models constructed by Jessica Agarwal of the Max Planck Institute for Solar System Research in Lindau, Germany, showed that the tails could have formed by a series of periodic impulsive dust-ejection events, radiation pressure from the Sun then stretched the dust into streams.
Excerpted from Wikipedia’s “311P/PanSTARRS” article, available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 licence.