P/2010 A2 (LINEAR)

P/2010 A2 (LINEAR) is a small Solar System body that displayed characteristics of both an asteroid and a comet, and thus, was initially given a cometary designation. Because it has the orbit of a main-belt asteroid and showed the tail of a comet, it was listed as a main-belt comet. But within a month of discovery, an analysis of images by the Hubble telescope suggested that its tail was generated by dust and gravel resulting from a recent head-on collision between asteroids rather than from sublimation of cometary ice. This was the first time a small-body collision had been observed; since then, minor planet 596 Scheila has also been seen to undergo a collision, in late 2010. The position of the nucleus was remarkable for being offset from the axis of the tail and outside of the dust halo,

P/2010 A2 (LINEAR)

P/2010 A2 (LINEAR) is a small Solar System body that displayed characteristics of both an asteroid and a comet, and thus, was initially given a cometary designation. Because it has the orbit of a main-belt asteroid and showed the tail of a comet, it was listed as a main-belt comet. But within a month of discovery, an analysis of images by the Hubble telescope suggested that its tail was generated by dust and gravel resulting from a recent head-on collision between asteroids rather than from sublimation of cometary ice. This was the first time a small-body collision had been observed; since then, minor planet 596 Scheila has also been seen to undergo a collision, in late 2010. The position of the nucleus was remarkable for being offset from the axis of the tail and outside of the dust halo,