Cosmic oddball

Some bodies have a very disturbing effect on the order in the solar system - P/2013 P5 is one of them. With several clearly visible tails, it may look like a comet, but orbits around the Sun within the asteroid belt - and thus cannot be unequivocally classified into either of these two categories. An international team which includes scientists from the Max Planck Institute for Solar System Research has now used the Hubble space telescope to investigate this mysterious body. Their diagnosis: P/2013 P5 is an asteroid that rotates so rapidly under the radiation pressure of the Sun that it loses material into space.

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