Thermal alteration and differential sublimation can create Phaethon's "rock comet" activity and blue color

In 2010 Jewitt and Li published a paper examining the behavior of "comet-asteroid transition object" 3200 Phaethon, arguing it was asteroid-like in its behavior throughout most of its orbit, but that near its perihelion, at a distance of only 0.165 AU from the sun, its dayside temperatures would be hot enough to vaporize rock (>1000 K, Hanus et al. 2016). Thus it would act like a "rock comet" as gases produced from evaporating rock were released from the body, in a manner similar to the more familiar sublimation of water ice into vacuum seen for comets coming within ~3 AU of the Sun. In this Note we predict that the same thermal effects that would create "rock comet" behavior with Q_gas ~ 10²² mol/s at perihelion have also helped to greatly bluen Phaethon's surface via preferential thermal alteration and sublimative removal of Fe and refractory organics, known reddening and darkening agents. These predictions are testable by searching for signs of spectral bluening of the surfaces of other small bodies in Phaethon-like small perihelion orbits, including comets, and by in situ measurements of Phaethon's surface and coma composition near perihelion with the upcoming DESTINY+ mission (Kawakatsu & Itawa 2013, Arai et al. 2018) to Phaethon by JAXA.