| Discoverer | A. R. Gibbs (Mount Lemmon Survey) |
|---|---|
| Discovery date | 22 March 2012 |
| Epoch | 4 February 2012 (JD 2455961.5) |
| Observation arc | 11.3 years |
| Obs | 148 |
| Aphelion | 3.130 AU |
| Perihelion | 2.877 AU |
| Semimajor | 3.004 AU |
| Eccentricity | 0.042 |
| Period | 5.21 years (1902 days) |
| Inclination | 9.740° |
| Asc node | 216.86° |
| Arg peri | 177.40° |
| Tjup | 3.229 |
| Earth moid | 1.88 AU |
| Jupiter moid | 2.08 AU |
| Mean diameter | 1.77 km (1.10 mi) |
| Rotation | 3.24 ± 0.01 hours |
| M 1 | 12.3 |
| M 2 | 15.4 |
| Last p | 25 December 2025[1] 29 September 2020 |
| Next p | 16 March 2031[2] |
331P/Gibbs (P/2012 F5) is a small periodic Encke-type and rare main-belt comet, discovered by American amateur astronomer Alex Gibbs.[3]
Description
It is a rare type of comet called a main-belt comet. Although most comets come from the Oort cloud or the Kuiper belt, main-belt comets are instead members of the asteroid belt that have a coma and tail. As of 2016, it is one of only 15 known main-belt comets.[4]
Precovery observations of 331P/Gibbs in Sloan Digital Sky Survey data were found dating to August 2004, in which the object was visible as a regular asteroid. Further observations in 2014 by the Keck Observatory showed that the comet was fractured into 5 pieces and rotating rapidly, with a rotation period of only 3.2 hours. Due to the YORP effect, P/2012 F5 had begun to spin so quickly that, being a likely rubble pile, parts began to be thrown off, leaving a very long dust trail.[5] This is very similar to 311P/PANSTARRS, being the best-established cause for main-belt comets along with impacts between small asteroids (such as with 596 Scheila and 354P/LINEAR).
References
- ^
- ^ "Horizons Batch for 331P/Gibbs (90001305) on 2031-Mar-16" (Perihelion occurs when rdot flips from negative to positive). JPL Horizons. Retrieved 2026-04-19. (JPL#41 Soln.date: 2025-Dec-18)
- ^ "JPL Small-Body Database Browser: (331P/Gibbs)" (last observation: 2015-12-14)
- ^ "JPL Small-Body Database Search Engine". Jet Propulsion Laboratory. NASA. Retrieved 10 December 2016.
- ^ "Active asteroid spun so fast that it exploded". Astronomy Now. Retrieved 10 December 2016.
External links
- 331P in SDSS (26 August 2004)
- 331P confirmation observations, Malina River Observatory (23 March 2012) Archived 5 December 2021 at the Wayback Machine
- 331P/Gibbs at Seiichi Yoshida's website
- 331P/Gibbs at Gideon van Buitenen's website