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Active asteroid
Bodies orbiting within the main asteroid belt which have shown cometary activity / From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
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Active asteroids are small Solar System bodies that have asteroid-like orbits but show comet-like visual characteristics.[1] That is, they show a coma, tail, or other visual evidence of mass-loss (like a comet), but their orbits remain within Jupiter's orbit (like an asteroid).[2][3] These bodies were originally designated main-belt comets (MBCs) in 2006 by astronomers David Jewitt and Henry Hsieh, but this name implies they are necessarily icy in composition like a comet and that they only exist within the main-belt, whereas the growing population of active asteroids shows that this is not always the case.[2][4][5]
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The first active asteroid discovered is 7968 Elst–Pizarro. It was discovered (as an asteroid) in 1979 but then was found to have a tail by Eric Elst and Guido Pizarro in 1996 and given the cometary designation 133P/Elst-Pizarro.[2][6]