Nasa’s Hubble spots unique binary asteroid with comet-like features

Berlin: An unusual object, discovered in the solar system’s asteroid belt, is actually two asteroids orbiting each other, scientists including one of Indian origin have found using the Hubble Space Telescope. “We detected strong indications for the sublimation of water ice due to the increased solar heating - similar to how the tail of a comet is created,” said Jessica Agarwal of the Max Planck Institute for Solar System Research in Germany. The combined features of the binary asteroid—wide separation, near-equal component size, high eccentricity orbit, and comet-like activity—also make it unique among the few known binary asteroids that have a wide separation. The fact that 2006 VW139/288P is so different from all other known binary asteroids raises some questions about how common such systems are in the asteroid belt.