Scientists Just Figured Out Why This Asteroid Has This Very Rare Tail

Amaze Lab

Usually the defining characteristic that separates comets and asteroids is the tail. Comets half ice and dust which vaporize in the Sun’s radiant heat, leaving their signature tails drifting behind them. But there are some asteroids with tails, including the one responsible for the annual Geminid meteor showers on Earth.

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00:00One of the defining characteristics that separates comets and asteroids is the tail.

00:09Comets have ice and dust which vaporize in the sun's radiant heat, leaving their signature tails drifting behind them.

00:15But there are some asteroids with tails, including the one responsible for the annual Geminid meteor showers on Earth.

00:21Experts have long believed that Phython's tail was simply dust,

00:24part of the hundreds of little bits of debris that get sucked into Earth's gravity well and burn up in epic meteorite displays.

00:29Now they say it's more complicated and that the tail also includes large amounts of sodium gas.

00:35This was discovered by the Joint ESA-NASA Solar and Heliospheric Observatory or SOHO,

00:40a device which has a sodium-sensitive filter on its telescope.

00:43Researchers discovered that just like the ice on comets, the sodium on Phython sublimates as it approaches the sun on its 524-day orbit.

00:51When that happens, the sodium is heated and releases a tail of gas behind it.

00:55So what about the dust?

00:56If ice isn't sublimating, then how are bits of rock breaking free?

00:59Well, the experts say they really don't know.

01:01And the best guess at the moment is that perhaps a piece of Phython broke free many years ago,

01:05and we simply travel through that debris field every year.

01:08anywhere in June and another here.

01:13Then mess with us here...

01:15Let's get out of here and here for the rest of the world,

01:17the careeval over the weekend вес is coming from humongous verklag聂 party.

01:19As you can rule from the audience voyez,

01:21you think it's a p-tree?

01:22you thinkassen it's really interesting,

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01:24but you don't vote for this matter.

01:25In the next fewest years...

01:26For the past fewest,

01:28behind the next fewest,

01:28we had all sorts of new runter rise.

01:30What are the last fewest heard?

01:31It's been 20 years ago.

01:32Through glass and the clouds here.

01:33To the beautiful blue earth.

01:35Let's watch it in here.

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