In January 2019, it was found that Gault had some cometary activity, and that it had multiple tails. The second tail was spotted by TRAPPIST team who has undergone a monitoring of several weeks and published a paper describing this unusual object.
T
he asteroid 6478 Gault seen with the TRAPPIST Telescope on February 6, showing two narrow, comet-like tails of debris that tell us that the asteroid is losing material maybe because of a fast rotation or an other phenomenon still to explain. The second tail was spotted first by TRAPPIST team (CBET 4606). The streaks surrounding the asteroid are background stars. The Gault asteroid is located between the orbits of Mars and Jupiter in the Main Asteroid Belt and is now part of a growing family of "activated asteroids" to not confuse with comets.
The team has published a paper to describe the dust tails of this strange asteroid.
@©E.Jehin
