It’s a bird! It’s a plane! No, it’s an asteroid-comet hybrid called a ‘centaur’ that might not even be that. Asteroids are metallic rocks that form close to the sun, while comets are dirty snowballs thrown from the fringes of our star system.

Researcher Noemí Pinilla-Alonso explained that the composition is uncharacteristic of objects near Neptune. Its gaseous and solid states, which lead to behavior like that of an asteroid and a comet, are also head-scratchers.

In the icy expanse beyond Jupiter and Neptune, a peculiar celestial body named Chiron has puzzled scientists for decades. Officially classified as 2060 Chiron, this 125-mile-wide object blurs the boundaries between asteroid and comet.

Scientists have discovered new characteristics of a small body which orbits the sun between Jupiter and Neptune, providing more clues about the origins of the Solar System. Chiron is a unique celestial object known as a centaur that has features of both asteroids and comets.