Impact-triggered activation of (2060) Chiron during its 1972 and 2021 outbursts

Abstract

Considering the possibility that the outbursts of (2060) Chiron observed in 1972 and 2021 may be due tocollisions from its interaction with a particle swarm, a search for the progenitor object of those particlesallows to find that the centaur 2015 RD277 approaches within 0.25 AU of Chiron’s orbit in the vicinity of theorbital region where the outbursts occur. No other objects approach the orbit of Chiron in the vicinity of itsaphelion. Two hypotheses were proposed for the generation of the particle swarm, where the one producedby a previous collision on 2015 RD277 is suggested as the best solution.