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<ul><li>The National Aeronautics and Space Administration’s (<keyword id="6360409" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="20" keywordseo="Nasa">NASA</keyword>) <keyword id="43700" type="PERSON" weightage="20" keywordseo="Hubble-Telescope">Hubble telescope</keyword> has caught a <keyword id="10833403" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="20" keywordseo="centaur-comet">Centaur comet</keyword> entering the orbit around <keyword id="34757" type="PERSON" weightage="20" keywordseo="Jupiter">Jupiter</keyword> on camera for the very first time.</li><li>The images show that it is currently amidst Jupiter’s ancient <keyword id="81841" type="PERSON" weightage="20" keywordseo="Asteroids">asteroids</keyword> called Trojans.</li><li>Scientists who made the discovery speculate that the <keyword id="158876" type="ORGANIZATION" weightage="20" keywordseo="comet">comet</keyword> had to have entered Jupiter’s orbit at just the right trajectory in order for this to happen.</li></ul>A centaur flying into a bunch of trojans sounds like the beginning of a bad joke, but that is exactly what is happening in the orbit of our solar system’s largest planet, Jupiter.<br /><br />For the very first time, a Centaur comet has been caught on camera amidst Jupiter’s ancient asteroids called Trojans using the National Aeronautics and Space Administration’s (<a href="https://www.nasa.gov/feature/goddard/2021/comet-makes-a-pit-stop-near-jupiters-asteroids">NASA</a>) legendary Hubble Telescope.<br /><br /><div type="javascript" title="Custom" contenttype="Video"><cdata><![CDATA[]]></cdata></div><br />Centaurs are small icy rocks that orbit the Sun between Jupiter and <keyword id="175328" type="PERSON" weightage="20" keywordseo="Neptune">Neptune</keyword>. Every once in a while, as they get closer to the Sun, these unstable balls of ice transform into comets upon being heated up. <br /><br />Trojans, on the other hand, are asteroids that only orbit Jupiter. There are over a million of them larger than 1 kilometer in diameter — that’s almost the same number of asteroids in the asteroid belt that divides the solar system’s inner four planets from the outer four.<br /><br />"The cool thing is that you are actually catching Jupiter flinging this object around and changing its orbital behavior and bringing it into the inner system," said team member Carey Lisse of the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory (APL) in a <a href="https://www.nasa.gov/feature/goddard/2021/comet-makes-a-pit-stop-near-jupiters-asteroids">statement.</a> <br /><br />The solar system is made up of two parts, the inner system and the outer system, divided by the asteroid belt. The inner system consists of Mercury, Venus, Earth and Mars while the outer system is made up of Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus and Neptune.<br /><br /><div type="image" title="planets_edited" msid="81227807" hostid="261" caption="&amp;lt;p&amp;gt;The asteroid belt lies dividing the inner and outer solar system lies between Mars and Jupiter&amp;lt;/p&amp;gt;"></div><br /><strong>How did this happen?<br /></strong>Honestly, even NASA does not know. Scientists who made the discovery speculate that the comet had to have entered Jupiter’s orbit at just the right trajectory to not burn up, and not just fly by either. <br /><br />"Jupiter controls what is going on with comets once they get into the inner system by altering their orbits," explained Lisse.<br /><br />One possible explanation is that the Centaur, dubbed P/2019 LD2, is likely the latest member of the ‘bucket brigade’. These are comets that get kicked out of the <keyword id="166066" type="PERSON" weightage="20" keywordseo="Kuiper-belt">Kuiper belt</keyword> and into the orbits of large planets due to interactions with another Kuiper belt object before getting caught in a game of celestial pinball.<br /><br /><div type="image" title="kuiper belt." msid="81227818" hostid="261" caption="&amp;lt;p&amp;gt;The Kuiper Belt lies along the outer edges of the solar system&amp;lt;/p&amp;gt;"></div><br />The Kuiper belt is the asteroid belt’s outer solar system cousin. The haven of icy, leftover debris from our planet’s construction 4.6 billion years ago is located beyond even Neptune’s orbit. It contains millions of objects. Every once in a while, these objects have near misses or collisions that drastically alter their orbits from the Kuiper belt inward into the giant planet region.<br /><br />And, P/2019 LD2, is likely one of the many icy relics on a bumpy towards the Sun. According to the researchers at NASA, members of the bucket brigade can spend nearly five million years sucked into the gravity of a large planet before crossing over into the inner solar system.<br /><br />On the other hand, it i also possible that the Centaur will never make the crossing. "Short-period comets like LD2 meet their fate by being thrown into the Sun and totally disintegrating, hitting a planet, or venturing too close to Jupiter once again and getting thrown out of the solar system, which is the usual fate," explained Lisse.<br /><br /><strong>SEE ALSO:<br /><a href="https://www.businessinsider.in/tech/apps/news/whatsapp-signal-and-telegram-face-a-catch-22-situation-as-indias-new-social-media-rules-threaten-encryption/articleshow/81221070.cms">Whatsapp, Signal and Telegram face a catch-22 situation as India’s new social media rules threaten encryption</a><br /><br /></strong><a href="https://www.businessinsider.in/finance/banks/news/ignore-low-cibil-score-for-street-vendor-loans-work-on-holidays-and-other-diktats-from-indian-government-to-banks-rushing-to-meet-march-target/articleshow/81223572.cms"><strong>EXCLUSIVE: Ignore low CIBIL score for street vendor loans, work on holidays, and other diktats from Indian government to banks rushing to meet March target</strong></a><br /><br />

A comet has been spotted among Jupiter's ancient asteroids for the very first time

<div id="ooyalaplayer" style="width: 800px; height: 450px;"></div><div style="display:none;" id="kalturavideoplaceholder">kalturavideoplaceholder</div><div><div><div class="g-ytsubscribe" data-channel="BusinessInsider" data-layout="full" data-count="default"></div></div></div><p class="embed-spacer"></p><p>Astronomers have some new insight into the activity of centaurs, giant comets that could have a devastating impact if they hit the Earth's surface.&#xa0;</p><p><em>Produced by <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/author/justin-gmoser" target="_blank">Justin Gmoser</a> and <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/author/jessica-orwig" target="_blank">Jessica Orwig</a>.&#xa0;</em></p><p><strong>Follow BI Video: </strong><a href="https://www.facebook.com/BusinessInsider.Video" target="_blank">On Facebook</a><strong>&#xa0;</strong></p><p><strong>&#xa0;</strong></p>

These giant comets could be on a collision course with Earth

<ul class="summary-list"><li><keyword id="6360409" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="60" keywordseo="Nasa">NASA</keyword> has confirmed that a mysterious object that just flew past Earth is the dead booster of a 1960s Centaur rocket.</li><li>Earth's gravity briefly captured the booster this year, causing it to loop the planet twice before returning to an orbit around the sun.</li><li>Scientists confirmed that the object was a Centaur booster by comparing its electromagnetic fingerprint to that of a known Centaur booster in space.</li></ul><p>A mysterious object zipped past Earth on Tuesday, coming within 32,000 miles of our planet. After months of head-scratching, scientists finally identified this visitor from beyond.</p><p>It's not an asteroid. It's not a comet. It's not an alien spaceship. On Wednesday, NASA confirmed that the object, formerly known as 2020 SO, is the booster of a Centaur rocket that launched in 1966.</p><div type="image" title="centaur rocket second stage" height="1536" width="2048" msid="79538692" hostid="261"></div><p>The rocket carried the Surveyor 2 mission, which was set to land on the moon, but went into a death spiral when one of its thrusters failed to fire with the others. Surveyor 2 crashed into the lunar surface, but the rocket booster had separated from the spacecraft shortly after pushing it towards its lunar destination. The booster then drifted, unseen, into the abyss of space.</p><p>Now Earth's gravity has briefly captured the rocket booster once again, like a tiny moon orbiting our planet. It's set to loop Earth twice before escaping the planet's pull in March 2021. Then it will continue on a new orbit around the sun.</p><div type="image" title="2020 so rocket booster orbit" height="670" width="1168" msid="79538693" hostid="261"></div><p>Its Tuesday flyby was the dead booster's closest approach to our planet.</p><p>A telescope on the Hawaiian island Maui first spotted the new space object in September. Its orbit seemed unnatural, following unusually close to Earth and remaining within the same plane as our planet. Most asteroids have tilted orbits, dipping above or below Earth as they journey around the sun.</p><p>"I was suspicious immediately," Paul Chodas, director of NASA's Center for Near-Earth Object Studies (CNEOS), <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2020/12/01/science/nasa-rocket-orbit.html">told the New York Times</a>.</p><p>Like Chodas, many scientists had suspected that this object was the Surveyor 2 booster, since reverse simulations of its orbit placed it so close to Earth in September 1966 that it could have easily come from our planet.</p><p>To test the theory, scientists used a NASA telescope on Hawaii's Maunakea to watch 2020 SO as it flew past Earth. They logged the object's spectrum data — wavelengths of electromagnetic radiation that act like fingerprints for objects in space. Different wavelengths represent different chemical compounds.</p><p>Scientists then compared the 2020 SO spectra to that of a known Centaur rocket booster, which has been orbiting Earth since it launched a satellite in 1971. The fingerprints matched.</p><p>"This conclusion was the result of a tremendous team effort," Vishnu Reddy, a planetary scientist at the University of Arizona who led the study, said in a <a href="https://www.nasa.gov/feature/new-data-confirm-2020-so-to-be-the-upper-centaur-rocket-booster-from-the-1960-s">press release</a>. "We were finally able to solve this mystery."</p>

Mystery solved: NASA confirmed the space object that just zipped past Earth is a 1960s rocket booster

You Searched For "centaur comet" and got 3 results

A comet has been spotted among Jupiter's ancient asteroids for the very first time

Prabhjote Gill

These giant comets could be on a collision course with Earth

Justin Gmoser,Jessica Orwig

Mystery solved: NASA confirmed the space object that just zipped past Earth is a 1960s rocket booster

Morgan McFall-Johnsen

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