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Continued Activity of (6478) Gault

ATel #12450; Quanzhi Ye (Caltech/IPAC), Michael S. P. Kelley (UMD), Dennis Bodewits (Auburn), Bryce Bolin (UW), Chan-Kao Chang (NCU), Zhong-Yi Lin (NCU) on behalf of the ZTF and GROWTH collaborations
on 29 Jan 2019; 20:09 UT
Distributed as an Instant Email Notice Comets
Credential Certification: Quanzhi Ye (qye@caltech.edu)

Subjects: Optical, Asteroid, Comet

We report the development of a new tail of the recently-identified active asteroid (6478) Gault, detected by the Zwicky Transient Facility (ZTF) on approximately UT 2019 Jan 28.25. Activity of Gault was first reported by ATLAS (CBET 4594, 4597) on 2019 Jan. 8, based on images taken by ATLAS from 2018 Dec. 8. Archival ZTF images show that significant brightening of Gault started before UT 2018 Oct. 31.50. The event peaked near 2018 Nov. 7, ?r=2.5 mag above the nominal asteroid brightness, and a tail first appeared on 2018 Nov. 16. The nuclear activity had seemingly subsided around mid-December 2018.

ZTF survey photometry shows another increase in brightness starting between UT 2018 Dec. 24.51 and 28.46. This second event peaked near 2019 Jan. 4, with ?r=2.0 mag above the nominal brightness. A new tail was first observed on the ZTF images taken on UT 2019 Jan. 28.51. Follow-up images obtained by the Lulin 1.0-m telescope (UT 2019 Jan. 28.88) and the Astrophysical Research Consortium 3.5-m telescope (UT 2019 Jan. 29.29) confirmed the new tail. Follow-up observations are encouraged.

This work is based on observations obtained with the Samuel Oschin Telescope 48-inch at the Palomar Observatory as part of the Zwicky Transient Facility project (see ATel #11266). Major funding has been provided by the U.S. National Science Foundation under Grant No. AST-1440341 and by the ZTF partner institutions: the California Institute of Technology, the Oskar Klein Centre, the Weizmann Institute of Science, the University of Maryland, the University of Washington, Deutsches Elektronen-Synchrotron, the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, and the TANGO Program of the University System of Taiwan. The GROWTH project is supported by the U.S. National Science Foundation under PIRE Grant 1545949.