8405 ASBOLUS

'8405 Asbolus' is a centaur, that is, an icy asteroid that orbits between Jupiter and Neptune. It was discovered by James V. Scotti and Robert Jedicke of Spacewatch at Kitt Peak Observatory on April 5, 1995. It is named after Asbolus (Greek for ''sooty''), a centaur in Greek mythology. Its provisional designation was '1995 GO'.
Asbolus is believed to be 66±4 km in diameter.^[3] No resolved images of it have ever been made but, in 1998, spectral analysis of its composition by the Hubble Space Telescope revealed a fresh impact crater on its surface, less than 10 million years old. Centaurs are dark in colour, because their icy surfaces have darkened after long exposure to solar radiation and the solar wind. However, fresh craters excavate brighter, more reflective ice from below the surface, and that is what Hubble has detected on Asbolus.

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References

References

1. http://www.johnstonsarchive.net/astro/tnoslist.html
2. http://cfa-www.harvard.edu/iau/lists/Centaurs.html
3. http://adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-bib_query?bibcode=2002AJ....123.1050F&db_key=AST&high=3d6ea7529520107



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