Some “asteroids” are actually dark comets. I repeat: some asteroids ACTUALLY COMETS:
Taylor, A. G. Seligman, D. Z. Holman, M. J. et al. Strong Nongravitational Accelerations and the Potential for Misidentification of Near-Earth Objects a 190 ad85e3
In the Dec #1 issue of Astrophysical Journal (vol. 976 #2), Taylor, Seligman, and other astronomers cover (not for the first time) the issue of unseen comets: comets whose activity (coma, tail) is too weak to appear in our telescopes, but is activity nonetheless. This activity then betrays itself as nongravitational force: a ‘jetting’ when volatile emissions aren’t symmetrical. Given the low activity, this is a weak force, but then again space is an inertial frame (no air drag, etc.), the force has a long time to integrate, and our telescopes are now quite good (at astrometry- the measurement of position). Certainly when you count orbit after orbit after orbit, having a body appear ‘early’ or ‘late’ versus predictions can now be measured. Result: some “asteroids” are early or late; either someone stuck a thruster on them, a solar sail, etc., or they’re actually comets, jetting themselves. 2024 is hardly the first time the subject has come up, and Taylor et al.’s paper is hardly groundbreaking or questionable that dark comets are possible.
Our current searches, per this paper, are reasonably good at the question of tracking “asteroids” despite them shifting on us. However, the issue is not open and shut: the “asteroids” called 2010 VL65 and 2021 UA12 had to be fudged together. Rather than separate bodies, it appears they are a single entity, seen in two ‘places’ because of their (its?) nongravitational force. Is this situation not that rare? Within reason, not really, but given sufficient force, yes- we may be missing objects- missing their cometary nature, and missing their detections in place- if the jetting’s strong enough for a VL65-UA12 type dilemma.
Small bodies: more interesting than one might think at first. One might not think asteroids are going incognito, ‘hiding’ their gas jets!