Astronomers Catch a "Dark Comet" Red-Handed
Astronomers have identified a 'dark comet' that was previously misclassified as a standard asteroid due to its faint coma. The object, 1998 SH2, exhibited unexpected orbital behavior that caused it to be missed by radar observations, highlighting the challenges in tracking near-Earth objects.
Our ability to track and visualize small rocks in space is still improving. And occasionally we’ll find a space rock that will remind us of that fact. One such rock is detailed in a new paper, led by Davide Farnocchia of NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, and recently published in Nature Astronomy, where the research team discovered what they thought was a normal, run of the mill asteroid, was actually a “dark comet”.
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