Scientists watch a comet being born 3 billion miles away

Astronomers have witnessed a small, icy body that orbits the sun out beyond Jupiter transforming into a comet, providing a missing link between comets and inert bodies called centaurs.The object in question is called 450P/LONEOS and is named after the Lowell Observatory survey that found it back in 2004. It is a centaur, which is a breed of inactive body that orbits the sun between Jupiter and Neptune. These objects are thought to have wandered in from the Kuiper Belt beyond Pluto, their paths p