Related papers: Rotation of Comet Hartley 2 from Structures in the…

We present an analysis of thermal emission from comet 162P/Siding Spring (P/2004 TU12) measured during its discovery apparition in 2004 December. The comet showed no dust coma at this time, so we have sampled emission from the comet's…

An analysis is presented for the photometric data on comet C/2013 A1 (Siding Spring) from observations at a large heliocentric distance (near 4.1 AU). Comet C/2013 A1 (Siding Spring) displays intense activity despite the relatively large…

Comet 133P/Elst-Pizarro is the first-known and currently best-characterised member of the main-belt comets, a recently-identified class of objects that exhibit cometary activity but which are dynamically indistinguishable from main-belt…

Comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko is the main target of ESA's Rosetta mission and will be encountered in May 2014. As the spacecraft shall be in orbit the comet nucleus before and after release of the lander {\it Philae}, it is necessary…

The unique inner-belt asteroid 311P/PANSTARRS (formerly P/2013 P5) is notable for its sporadic, comet-like ejection of dust in nine distinct epochs spread over $\sim$250 days in 2013. This curious behavior has been interpreted as the…

Jupiter-family comet (JFC) P/2021 HS (PANSTARRS) only exhibits a coma within a few weeks of its perihelion passage at 0.8~au, which is atypical for a comet. Here we present an investigation into the underlying cause using serendipitous…

When viewed from Earth, most of what we observe of a comet is dust. The influence of solar radiation pressure on the trajectories of dust particles depends on their cross-section to mass ratio. Hence solar radiation pressure acts like a…

The physical properties of cometary nuclei observed today relate to their complex history and help to constrain their formation and evolution. In this article, we review some of the main physical properties of cometary nuclei and focus in…

The Mars flyby of C/2013 A1 (Siding Spring) represented a unique opportunity for imaging a long-period comet and resolving its nucleus and rotation period. Because of the small encounter distance and the high relative velocity, the goal of…

We report the detection of the nucleus of interstellar object 3I/ATLAS, using a nucleus extraction technique on Hubble Space Telescope (HST) observations taken between December 2025 and January 2026. The product of the V-band geometric…

We report the recovery of returning Halley-type comet 12P/Pons-Brooks using the 4.3 m Lowell Discovery Telescope, at a heliocentric distance of 11.89 au. Comparative analysis with a dust model suggests that the comet may have been active…

The coma of comet C/2016 R2 (PanSTARRS) is one of the most chemically peculiar ever observed, in particular due to its extremely high CO/H2O and N2+/H2O ratios}, and unusual trace volatile abundances. However, the complex shape of its CO…

We present the secular light curve of comet 2P/Encke in two phase spaces, the log plot, and the time plot. The main conclusions of this work are: a) The comet shows activity at perihelion and aphelion, caused by two different active areas:…

We report on the first major temporal morphological changes observed on the surface of the nucleus of comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko, in the smooth terrains of the Imhotep region. We use images of the OSIRIS cameras onboard Rosetta to…

Comet 17P/Holmes underwent a massive outburst in 2007 Oct., brightening by a factor of almost a million in under 48 hours. We used infrared images taken by the Wide-Field Survey Explorer mission to characterize the comet as it appeared at a…

The nucleus of the Jupiter-family comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko was discovered to be bi-lobate in shape when the European Space Agency spacecraft Rosetta first approached it in July 2014. The bi-lobate structure of the cometary nucleus…

Comet C/2020 V2 (ZTF) is categorized as a dynamically new long-period comet, making its first approach to the inner Solar system. We have observed this comet for around 32 months (from January 2022 to July 2024) at heliocentric distances…

We examine the rise and sudden demise of comet C/2010 X1 (Elenin) on its approach to perihelion. Discovered inbound at 4.2 AU, this long-period comet was predicted to become very bright when near perihelion, at 0.48 AU on 2011 September 10.…

A mechanism is proposed to explain the outburst of comet 17P/Holmes based on; (a) oxidation of water within the porous surface of the comet nucleus to form hydrogen peroxide (H2O2) through exposure to UV radiation, to energetic solar-wind…

From August to November 2014 the Rosetta orbiter has performed an extensive observation campaign aimed at the characterization of 67P/CG nucleus properties and to the selection of the Philae landing site. The campaign led to the production…