Cometary Activity on Asteroid 2005 XR132 Observed at Lulin Observatory
ATel #14522; Yu-Chi Cheng (NTNU-PHYS), Wei-Jie Hou (IANCU), and Wing-Huen Ip (IANCU)
on 7 Apr 2021; 13:54 UT
Distributed as an Instant Email Notice Comets
Credential Certification: Yu-Chi Cheng (ycc312@g.ncu.edu.tw)
Subjects: Optical, Request for Observations, Asteroid, Comet, Solar System Object
We discover a tail-like structure along the anti-solar direction of the asteroid 2005 XR132 with the Lulin One-meter Telescope (LOT) in Taiwan. The cometary activity is clearly shown in our four individual 480s R-band images under the bin 2 readout mode taken on April 5 and 6. No background stars or galaxies are seen along the pathway of 2005 XR132 in the Pan-STARRS 1 stacked r' image. The position angle of the weak tail ranges from 0 to 60 degree, with 11 arcsec in length. The integrated brightness within a photometric aperture of 4 pixels in radius is R~19.7 mag (calibrated by the USNO B1 catalog). Our syndynes-synchrones simulation indicate that 2005 XR132 has been ejecting dust particles since ~100 days ago. The images, the reference frame, and the dust simulation can be found at http://140.115.34.237/XR132_LOT.png . Follow-up observations are required to clarify the nature of this transient object. This work is based on the observations made with Lulin 1-m telescopes at Lulin Observatory (MPC code: D35), operated by Institute of Astronomy, NCU, Taiwan.
Observing images of asteroid 2005 XR132
