See also: Chiron

(2060) Chiron is a “centaur”, a rock body of almost 200 km in diameter orbiting around the Sun between Saturn and Uranus. It bears the name of the Centaure Chiron, in the Greek Mythologie.

Chiron was discovered by Charles T. Kowal the October 18th 1977 using the Télescope of 1,2 m of the Observatoire of the Mount Palomar in California and was temporarily named 1977 UB . In fact, this body had already been photographed before, the first time by the celestial atlas Harvard (Cambridge, Massachusetts) the April 24th 1895! He was first of all regarded as a Astéroïde, but most remote which had ever been observed at that time. However, Kowal did not draw aside the possibility that it could be a question of a Comet and proposed in 1978 to name it “Chiron”, the duality man/horse of the mythical animal which is the centaur returning to possible nature asteroid/comet of the body.

In 1988, one measured a sudden increase in the luminosity of Chiron of almost a magnitude, a typical behavior of the Comet S. In 1989, a hair and a tail was observed, indicating by there that Chiron was indeed a comet. But with a diameter of ~200 km, Chiron is largely larger than any other known comet. One thus continues to classify Chiron at the same time among the asteroids ((2060) Chiron) and the comets ( 95P/Chiron ).

Chiron is now classified like a Centaure, the first of a category of objects orbiting among the external Planets. The Centaurs do not have stable orbits on several hundreds of thousands of years and Chiron, whose orbit cannot be given or recalled with precision beyond 2.000 years, is generally regarded as an object of the Ceinture of Kuiper, placed on an internal orbit following gravitational disturbances. Indeed, after the analysis of materials sublimating itself on the surface of Chiron, one estimates that those would be completely vaporized in a few million years if Chiron were maintained on its current orbit, indicating that it would come moreover further and that it is not origin asteroid. Moreover, Chiron is of size similar to the objects of the belt of Kuiper which were discovered.

See too

Internal bonds

• Other asteroids presenting a cometary activity.