Centaurs Are Not Like Comets After All ⠀ buff.ly/3oaho85⠀ ⠀ Researchers at the Planetary Science Institute have had a bit of a breakthrough when it comes to understanding one of the more mythical beasts we’ve discovered — centaurs.⠀ ⠀ Centaurs are a strange combination of asteroid and comet, big lumps of rock and ice out between the orbits of Jupiter and Neptune that occasionally put on a show by growing comas. They’re a curious creature, and to that end, a team of researchers got time on the Gemini North telescope in Hawaii to look at a selection of centaurs found in PANSTARRS-1 survey data.⠀ ⠀ Here’s the funny bit — they weren’t looking for inactive centaurs; they were looking for those comet-like tails. And found exactly none of the 13 bodies they were able to observe. But sometimes, not finding what you are looking for can give you insight into the inner workings of a system. In this case, by finding all these inactive centaurs, the team found a potential reason for just ho...