Astronomers recategorize asteroid-like comet
Recently discovered object 2019 LD2, originally believed to be the first cometary "Jupiter Trojan" asteroid by astronomers at the University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa Institute for Astronomy turns out to be an interloper comet masquerading as a member of the Trojan population. The distinction was first suggested by amateur astronomers Sam Deen and Tony Dunn on the Minor Planet Mailing List on May 21 and confirmed by UH's Asteroid Terrestrial-impact Last Alert System (ATLAS) colleagues Alan Fitzsimmons and Henry Hsieh that 2019 LD2 is in fact a comet with a chaotically changing orbit currently resembling that of a Trojan asteroid. The cometary nature of this object was announced in a Minor Planet Electronic Circular on May 22, giving it the slightly different new name of P/2019 LD2 that denotes it as a comet. On May 23, additional analysis by Japan astronomer Syuichi Nanako confirmed the evolving orbit was published by...