Early observations of new active asteroid 2025 VZ 8

Hsieh, Henry H., Usher, Helen, Lister, Tim, Chandler, Colin O., Frissell, Maxwell K., Thirouin, Audrey, Sheppard, Scott S., Micheli, Marco, Kelley, Michael S. P., Holt, Carrie E., Gomez, Edward ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-5749-1507, Chatelain, Joseph P. and Greenstreet, Sarah 2026. Early observations of new active asteroid 2025 VZ 8. Research Notes of the American Astronomical Society 10 (1) , 1. 10.3847/2515-5172/ae3237

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Abstract

We report observations of main-belt asteroid 2025 VZ8 using multiple telescopes from UT 2025 November 24 to UT 2025 December 23 that confirm the presence of visible comet-like activity. These observations were motivated by online reports that an abrupt brightening event may have led to the object’s discovery on UT 2025 November 9. In all observations reported here, the object displays a tapered tail approximately 3″ long aligned with the antisolar direction. The object has an asteroidal Tisserand parameter value with respect to Jupiter (TJ = 3.371), and is thus considered an active asteroid. We measure an average apparent r′ -band magnitude of mr ∼ 21.6 mag over the reported observing period. Due to the sudden appearance of activity far from perihelion, we suggest that the activity is more likely due to an impact or rotational destabilization, rather than sublimation.

Item Type:	Article
Date Type:	Published Online
Status:	Published
Schools:	Schools > Physics and Astronomy
Additional Information:	License information from Publisher: LICENSE 1: URL: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/, Type: cc-by
Publisher:	IOP Publishing
Date of First Compliant Deposit:	12 January 2026
Date of Acceptance:	30 December 2025
Last Modified:	12 Jan 2026 14:00
URI:	https://orca.cardiff.ac.uk/id/eprint/183793

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