The icy Centaur 450P/LONEOS may preserve material left over from the Solar System’s formation, but a pass within 2.9 million miles of Saturn in 1992 abruptly shifted its orbit closer to the Sun; now Gemini and JWST have detected its returning coma, carbon-dioxide gas and rising dust production, giving astronomers a rare real-time view of a Centaur beginning its transition into a Jupiter

A Saturn encounter shifted 450P/LONEOS inward; Gemini and Webb have now followed its growing dust coma and identified carbon dioxide as the likely driver of its distant activity. The post The icy Centaur 450P/LONEOS may preserve material left over from the Solar System’s formation, but a pass within 2.9 million miles of Saturn in 1992 abruptly shifted its orbit closer to the Sun; now Gemini and JWST have detected its returning coma, carbon-dioxide gas and rising dust production, giving astronomers a rare real-time view of a Centaur beginning its transition into a Jupiter-family comet. appeared first on Space Daily .