Researchers have found that a space object called Chiron has traits like both an asteroid and comet. William Gonzalez Sierra It really rocked their world. Scientists using the James Webb Space ...

a bit like a comet. Charles Schambeau of the University of Central Florida describes Chiron as an oddball among all the other centaurs, and even among trans-Neptunian objects (TNOs), which have ...

Officially classified as 2060 Chiron, this 125-mile-wide object blurs the boundaries between asteroid and comet. Now, thanks to groundbreaking observations from the James Webb Space Telescope ...

In 1977, Chiron became the first centaur ever discovered. Astronomers originally thought that it was an asteroid, but when it was seen emitting a halo of gas and a tail like a comet, they realized ...

Chiron is just 218 kilometers (135 miles) across and occasionally has outbursts like a comet. To date, however, no spacecraft has ever visited a Centaur. In 2011, Chiron passed in front of a faint ...

Named 2060 Chiron, this 125-mile-wide (200km) asteroid-comet hybrid is a type of body known as a Centaur, named after the mythical creature that is half-horse and half-man. Centaurs are solar ...

Since Chiron possesses characteristics of both an asteroid and a comet, it makes it rich for studying many processes that could assist in understanding them, she says. "What is unique about Chiron ...

When Chiron was first discovered, it was believed to be a distant asteroid, but it was later classified as a comet and minor planet, also known as a dwarf planet or planetoid. Regardless of what ...