8405 Asbolus is a

centaur A centaur ( ; grc, κένταυρος, kéntauros; ), or occasionally hippocentaur, is a creature from Greek mythology with the upper body of a human and the lower body and legs of a horse. Centaurs are thought of in many Greek myths as being ...

orbiting in the

outer Solar System The Solar SystemCapitalization of the name varies. The International Astronomical Union, the authoritative body regarding astronomical nomenclature, specifies capitalizing the names of all individual astronomical objects but uses mixed "Solar S ...

between the orbits of

Jupiter Jupiter is the fifth planet from the Sun and the List of Solar System objects by size, largest in the Solar System. It is a gas giant with a mass more than two and a half times that of all the other planets in the Solar System combined, but ...

and

Neptune Neptune is the eighth planet from the Sun and the farthest known planet in the Solar System. It is the fourth-largest planet in the Solar System by diameter, the third-most-massive planet, and the densest giant planet. It is 17 times ...

. It was discovered on 5 April 1995, by James Scotti and Robert Jedicke of

Spacewatch The Spacewatch Project is an astronomical survey that specializes in the study of minor planets, including various types of asteroids and comets at University of Arizona telescopes on Kitt Peak near Tucson, Arizona, in the United States. The Spa ...

(credited) at

Kitt Peak Observatory The Kitt Peak National Observatory (KPNO) is a United States astronomical observatory located on Kitt Peak of the Quinlan Mountains in the Arizona-Sonoran Desert on the Tohono Oʼodham Nation, west-southwest of Tucson, Arizona. With more than ...

in Arizona, United States. It is named after

Asbolus In Greek mythology, Asbolus (Ancient Greek: Ἄσβολον or Ἄσβόλη means "sooty" or "carbon dust") was a centaur. He was a Clairvoyance, seer and Hesiod calls him an augur (''oionistes'' οἰωνιστής) who read omens in the flight ...

, a

in Greek mythology and measures approximately 80 kilometers in diameter.

Orbit and classification

Centaurs have short dynamical lifetimes due to perturbations by the giant planets. ''Asbolus'' is estimated to have an orbital half-life of about 860

kiloannum A year or annus is the orbital period of a planetary body, for example, the Earth, moving in its orbit around the Sun. Due to the Earth's axial tilt, the course of a year sees the passing of the seasons, marked by change in weather, the hour ...

. ''Asbolus'' is currently ''classified'' as a SN centaur since Saturn is considered to control the

perihelion An apsis (; ) is the farthest or nearest point in the orbit of a planetary body about its primary body. For example, the apsides of the Earth are called the aphelion and perihelion. General description There are two apsides in any ellip ...

and Neptune controls the aphelion. It currently has a

of 6.8 AU, so is also influenced by Jupiter. Centaurs with a perihelion less than 6.6 AU are very strongly influenced by Jupiter and for classification purposes are considered to have a perihelion under the control of Jupiter. In about ten thousand years, clones of the orbit of ''Asbolus'' suggest that its perihelion classification may come under the control of Jupiter. Predicting the overall orbit and position of ''Asbolus'' beyond a few thousand years is difficult because of errors in the known

trajectory A trajectory or flight path is the path that an object with mass in motion follows through space as a function of time. In classical mechanics, a trajectory is defined by Hamiltonian mechanics via canonical coordinates; hence, a complete traj ...

, error amplification by perturbations due to all of the

gas giant A gas giant is a giant planet composed mainly of hydrogen and helium. Gas giants are also called failed stars because they contain the same basic elements as a star. Jupiter and Saturn are the gas giants of the Solar System. The term "gas giant" ...

s, and the possibility of perturbation as a result of

comet A comet is an icy, small Solar System body that, when passing close to the Sun, warms and begins to release gases, a process that is called outgassing. This produces a visible atmosphere or coma, and sometimes also a tail. These phenomena ar ...

ary outgassing and fragmentation. Compared to centaur

7066 Nessus 7066 Nessus is a very red centaur on an eccentric orbit, located beyond Saturn in the outer Solar System. It was discovered on 26 April 1993, by astronomers of the Spacewatch program at the Kitt Peak National Observatory in Tucson, Arizona. The ...

, the orbit of ''Asbolus'' is currently much more chaotic.

Naming

This

minor planet According to the International Astronomical Union (IAU), a minor planet is an astronomical object in direct orbit around the Sun that is exclusively classified as neither a planet nor a comet. Before 2006, the IAU officially used the term ''minor ...

was named from

Greek mythology A major branch of classical mythology, Greek mythology is the body of myths originally told by the Ancient Greece, ancient Greeks, and a genre of Ancient Greek folklore. These stories concern the Cosmogony, origin and Cosmology#Metaphysical co ...

after

(Greek for "sooty", "the black one"), a

capable to read omens in the flight of birds. He provoked a bloodbath in which the centaurs

Chiron In Greek mythology, Chiron ( ; also Cheiron or Kheiron; ) was held to be the superlative centaur amongst his brethren since he was called the "wisest and justest of all the centaurs". Biography Chiron was notable throughout Greek mythology ...

and Pholus met their deaths at

Heracles Heracles ( ; grc-gre, Ἡρακλῆς, , glory/fame of Hera), born Alcaeus (, ''Alkaios'') or Alcides (, ''Alkeidēs''), was a divine hero in Greek mythology, the son of Zeus and Alcmene, and the foster son of Amphitryon.By his adoptive ...

hands. The minor planets

2060 Chiron 2060 Chiron is a small Solar System body in the outer Solar System, orbiting the Sun between Saturn and Uranus. Discovered in 1977 by Charles Kowal, it was the first-identified member of a new class of objects now known as centaurs—bodies orb ...

, 5145 Pholus and 5143 Heracles are named after these mythological figures. The official naming citation was published on 28 September 1999 ().

Physical characteristics

No resolved images of it have ever been made, but in 1998 spectral analysis of its composition by the

Hubble Space Telescope The Hubble Space Telescope (often referred to as HST or Hubble) is a space telescope that was launched into low Earth orbit in 1990 and remains in operation. It was not the first space telescope, but it is one of the largest and most versa ...

revealed a fresh

impact crater An impact crater is a circular depression in the surface of a solid astronomical object formed by the hypervelocity impact of a smaller object. In contrast to volcanic craters, which result from explosion or internal collapse, impact craters ...

on its surface, less than 10 million years old.

Centaurs A centaur ( ; grc, κένταυρος, kéntauros; ), or occasionally hippocentaur, is a creature from Greek mythology with the upper body of a human and the lower body and legs of a horse. Centaurs are thought of in many Greek myths as being ...

are dark in colour, because their icy surfaces have darkened after long exposure to

solar radiation Solar irradiance is the power per unit area (surface power density) received from the Sun in the form of electromagnetic radiation in the wavelength range of the measuring instrument. Solar irradiance is measured in watts per square metre ( ...

and the

solar wind The solar wind is a stream of charged particles released from the upper atmosphere of the Sun, called the corona. This plasma mostly consists of electrons, protons and alpha particles with kinetic energy between . The composition of the sol ...

. However, fresh craters excavate more reflective ice from below the surface, and that is what Hubble has detected on ''Asbolus''.

References

External links

Asteroid Lightcurve Database (LCDB)
query form

)
Dictionary of Minor Planet Names
Google books

– Observatoire de Genève, Raoul Behrend

– Minor Planet Center * * {{DEFAULTSORT:Asbolus Centaurs (small Solar System bodies) 008405 Named minor planets 19950405

Orbit and classification

Naming

Physical characteristics

See also

References

External links