A Manx comet is a class of rocky, minor, celestial bodies that have a long-period comet orbit. Unlike most bodies on a long-period comet orbit which typically sport long, bright tails, a Manx comet is tailless, more typical of an inner Solar System asteroid.[1] The nickname comes from the Manx breed of tailless cat. Examples include C/2013 P2 (PANSTARRS), discovered on 4 August 2013,[2] which has an orbital period greater than 51 million years,[3] and C/2014 S3 (PANSTARRS), discovered on 22 September 2014, which is thought to originate from the Oort cloud and could help explain the formation of the Solar System.[4][5]

References

  1. ^ "Orbit like a comet, rocky like an asteroid". earthsky.org. 3 May 2016.
  2. ^ Meech, Karen (November 2014). "C/2013 P2 Pan STARRS - The Manx Comet". AAS/Division for Planetary Sciences Meeting Abstracts #46. 46: 200.02. Bibcode:2014DPS....4620002M.
  3. ^ "First Observations of the Surfaces of Objects from the Oort Cloud". Institute for Astronomy, University of Hawaii at Manoa. 10 November 2014.
  4. ^ Meech, Karen (29 April 2016). "Inner solar system material discovered in the Oort cloud". Science Advances. 2 (4): e1600038. Bibcode:2016SciA....2E0038M. doi:10.1126/sciadv.1600038. PMC 4928888. PMID 27386512.
  5. ^ "Comet with Stunted Tail Hints at How Solar System Formed". Astrobiology at NASA. 23 May 2016. Archived from the original on April 27, 2017. Retrieved 23 January 2019.

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