2 Red Objects Found in the Asteroid Belt. they shouldn’t be

The finding, if true, holds for planetary migration in the early solar system, particularly beautiful model, Saturn, Uranus, and Neptune all move outward, and Jupiter a little inward, for a few hundred million years. This would disturb the organically charged asteroids left over from the formation of planets and send them pinging around the solar system.

Dr. “It’s an exciting discovery with implications for the origins of life,” said Öberg.

Most of these residual objects today are known as trans-Neptune objects and orbit beyond Neptune in the Kuiper belt. Many are red in color, such as Arrokoth, the rock of NASA’s New Horizons mission. There’s a close-up in 2019. 203 Pompeja and 269 Justitia both seem to fit them.

“People have been talking about some of the asteroids from the Kuiper belt for a while,” said Josh Emery, a planetary scientist at Northern Arizona University who was not involved in the paper. He said the research “definitely took a step forward” to find evidence to support this hypothesis.

Not everyone is convinced yet. Not featured in the newspaper, Dr. Levison says objects should become less red the closer they get to the sun. Even captured asteroids known as Trojans orbiting Jupiter and thought to be possibly trans-Neptunian objects aren’t even that red. NASA chief Dr. “It seems inconsistent with our models,” Levison said. Lucy missionJupiter is scheduled to launch in October to study Trojans.

Dr. Marsset admits it’s not clear why they’re so red, but it probably has to do with how long it took them to be placed in the asteroid belt. Some Trojans may also be red, but have yet to be found.

To truly confirm the origin of 203 Pompeja and 269 Justitia, a spacecraft will likely need to visit them. Such a mission could potentially offer a glimpse into the outer solar system, but without spending a decade or more to fly there.

Dr. “You can fly past one of these strange asteroids and a more typical asteroid for comparison,” Emery said. “That would be a really challenging spacecraft mission.”