Main-belt comets as tracers of ice in the inner Solar system

TL;DR

Main-belt comets are a newly identified class of objects within the asteroid belt that show comet-like activity driven by sublimation, providing evidence of present-day ice in the inner solar system and insights into its history.

Contribution

This paper highlights the significance of main-belt comets as tracers of ice, emphasizing the need for discovering more such objects and understanding their physical and thermal evolution.

Findings

Existence of ice in main-belt comets confirmed

Current known MBCs are seven in number

Understanding MBCs can reveal solar system's thermal history

Abstract

As a recently recognized class of objects exhibiting apparently cometary (sublimation-driven) activity yet orbiting completely within the main asteroid belt, main-belt comets (MBCs) have revealed the existence of present-day ice in small bodies in the inner solar system and offer an opportunity to better understand the thermal and compositional history of our solar system, and by extension, those of other planetary systems as well. Achieving these overall goals, however, will require meeting various intermediate research objectives, including discovering many more MBCs than the currently known seven objects in order to ascertain the population's true abundance and distribution, confirming that water ice sublimation is in fact the driver of activity in these objects, and improving our understanding of the physical, dynamical, and thermal evolutionary processes that have acted on this population over the age of the solar system.