Properties of asteroids in comet-like orbits

We investigated the population of asteroids in comet-like orbits using available asteroid size and albedo catalogs of data taken with the Infrared Astronomical Satellite, AKARI, and the Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer on the basis of their orbital properties (i.e., the Tisserand parameter with respect to Jupiter, T_J_, and the aphelion distance, Q). We found that (1) there are 123 asteroids in comet-like orbits by our criteria (i.e., Q > 4.5 AU and T_J_< 3), (2) 80% of them have low albedo, p_v_< 0.1, consistent with comet nuclei, (3) the low-albedo objects among them have a size distribution shallower than that of active comet nuclei, that is, the power index of the cumulative size distribution is around 1.1, and (4) unexpectedly, a considerable number (i.e., 25 by our criteria) of asteroids in comet-like orbits have high albedo, p_v_> 0.1.

We noticed that such high-albedo objects mostly consist of small (D < 3 km) bodies distributed in near-Earth space (with perihelion distance of q < 1.3 AU). We suggest that such high-albedo, small objects were susceptible to the Yarkovsky effect and drifted into comet-like orbits via chaotic resonances with planets.