Discovery of 118401 LINEAR

118401 LINEAR, also known as 176P/LINEAR, is a small body in the asteroid belt that is both an asteroid and a comet. It was found in 1999 by the LINEAR survey in New Mexico, which scans the sky for near-Earth objects, and was at first classified as a minor planet. In 2005 astronomers saw that it had a tail of dust, showing that it released gas and dust like a comet even though its orbit is almost circular and lies among the asteroids rather than in the cold outer Solar System. It was the first of a new group, called main-belt comets, studied by Henry Hsieh and David Jewitt. The group suggests that some asteroids contain ice, which may be a source of Earth's water.

Open on the timeline