Infrared spectroscopy of the Centaur 8405 Asbolus: first observations at ESO-VLT

Centaurs constitute a separate population of Solar System objects, with orb its crossing one or more of the giant planets' orbits. They are located on unstable orbits with short lifetimes, and are probably transition objects b etween Trans-Neptunians and short-period comets. We present near-infrared s pectroscopic observations of one of the Centaurs, 1995 GO, now named 8405 A sbolus, carried out at the ESO-Very Large Telescope (Mount Paranal, Chile) in May 1999. Spectra obtained in the J, H, and K bands show a rather featur eless behavior with, in particular, no detection of H2O ice.