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Title: Mars-Crossing Minor Planet 2018 VL10: a Jupiter-family Comet Discovery via Citizen Science
Abstract We announce the discovery of cometary activity emitting from minor planet 2018 VL10in Dark Energy Camera images spanning from UT 2018 December 31 to UT 2019 March 3. The activity was identified by volunteers of our NASA Partner programActive Asteroids, aZooniverse-hosted Citizen Science project designed to find previously unknown activity in known minor planets. Notably, 2018 VL10crosses the orbits of Mars and Jupiter, and experiences close approaches of less than 0.5 au with both Earth and Jupiter. We classify 2018 VL10as a member of the Jupiter-family comets, a group of objects especially important to understand because they hold important clues about the solar system volatile distribution, past and present.  more » « less
Award ID(s):
1950901
PAR ID:
10497433
Author(s) / Creator(s):
; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ;
Publisher / Repository:
IOP
Date Published:
Journal Name:
Research Notes of the AAS
Volume:
7
Issue:
12
ISSN:
2515-5172
Page Range / eLocation ID:
279
Format(s):
Medium: X
Sponsoring Org:
National Science Foundation
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