Centaur 29P, an icy object in the outer solar system, is spewing unusual jets of hot gas, revealing its hybrid nature as a mashup of different cosmic bodies.
Since its discovery in 1927, Centaur 29P/Schwassmann-Wachmann 1 has baffled scientists with its highly active and quasi-periodical outbursts, which vary in intensity every six to eight weeks. A closer look at the mysterious icy body revealed three jets of hot gas gushing out of it, suggesting that it’s made of distinctly different parts from various objects.
“Centaurs can be considered as some of the leftovers of our planetary system’s formation. Because they are stored at very cold temperatures, they preserve information about volatiles in the early stages of the solar system,” Sara Faggi, a researcher at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center, and lead author of the study, said in a statement. “Webb really opened the door to a resolution and sensitivity that was impressive to us—when we saw the data for the first time, we were excited.
The scientists, however, are still not sure what may be causing Centaur 29P’s dramatic bursts of brightness and the mechanism that drives its jets of hot gasses. The jets of comets, for example, are driven by the outgassing of water, but centaurs are too cold for water ice to change its form.
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