Extremely strong polarization of an active asteroid (3200) Phaethon

(3200) Phaethon is a near-Earth asteroid discovered in 1983 that has large inclination and eccentricity. Here, the authors perform polarimetric observation of Phaethon over a wide range of solar phase angle and report that the asteroid exhibits a very strong linear polarization.

Bibliographic Details
Main Authors: Takashi Ito, Masateru Ishiguro, Tomoko Arai, Masataka Imai, Tomohiko Sekiguchi, Yoonsoo P. Bach, Yuna G. Kwon, Masanori Kobayashi, Ryo Ishimaru, Hiroyuki Naito, Makoto Watanabe, Kiyoshi Kuramoto
Format: Article
Language:English
Published: Nature Publishing Group 2018-06-01
Series:Nature Communications
Online Access:https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-018-04727-2