OREANDA-NEWS It has two tails: a clearly visible bright short and long darker tail. Astronomers concluded that the object began to exhibit amazing oddities. It began to change color in real time, moving from red to blue. We discovered it a long time ago, back in 1988. Gault did not cause much interest for a long time. Scientists considered it a boring old cosmic stone about 4 km wide. Among its own kind, it rotates in the asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter.

But at the beginning of this year, Gault changed its behavior, which attracted attention. Since January, its activity has increased. It began to spew dust, from which a long tail appeared for half a million miles. And the tail is not one, there are two of them. Looking closer, scientists noticed that a strange object began to change color and does it very quickly. By analyzing the object, the researchers determined that Gault is dry and rocky.

Nothing special and surprising, no surprises there. It raises questions: how does it change at such a speed the color from red to blue in the near infrared part of the spectrum. According to scientists, the reason is in the tails and its rapid rotation. Dust as a result of rotation is ejected from the surface, creating tails and changing color. Beautiful, but for an asteroid this is an act of self-destruction. So far this is only a theory, the confirmation of which will be devoted to the following studies. The study was published in the Astrophysical Journal Letters.