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Related papers: Comet Machholz (C/2004 Q2): morphological structur…

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The thermal emission of comet C/2013 A1 (Siding Spring) was observed on March 31, 2013, at a heliocentric distance of 6.48 au using the PACS photometer camera of the Herschel Space Observatory. The comet was clearly active, showing a coma…

Earth and Planetary Astrophysics · Physics 2015-01-21 Cs. Kiss , T. G. Müller , M. Kidger , P. Mattisson , G. Marton

C/2002 CE$_{10}$ is an object in a retrograde elliptical orbit with Tisserand parameter $-0.853$ indicating a likely origin in the Oort Cloud. It appears to be a rather inactive comet since no coma and only a very weak tail was detected…

Earth and Planetary Astrophysics · Physics 2018-02-28 Tomohiko Sekiguchi , Seidai Miyasaka , Budi Dermawan , Thomas Mueller , Naruhisa Takato , Junichi Watanabe , Hermann Boehnhardt

On 4 July 2005 at 05:52 UT, the impactor of NASA's Deep Impact (DI) mission crashed into comet 9P/Tempel 1 with a velocity of about 10 km/s. The material ejected by the impact expanded into the normal coma, produced by ordinary cometary…

We observed dynamically new sungrazing comet ISON (C/2012 S1) extensively at Lowell Observatory throughout 2013 in order to characterize its behavior prior to perihelion. ISON had "typical" abundances for an Oort Cloud comet. Its dust…

Earth and Planetary Astrophysics · Physics 2015-06-23 Matthew M. Knight , David G. Schleicher

We present photometric and morphological analysis of the behavior of sungrazing comet C/2012 S1 ISON in SOHO and STEREO images around its perihelion on 2013 November 28.779 UT. ISON brightened gradually November 20-26 with a superimposed…

Earth and Planetary Astrophysics · Physics 2015-06-18 Matthew M. Knight , Karl Battams

We surveyed 23 comets using the Infrared Array Camera on the Spitzer Space Telescope in wide filters centered at 3.6 and 4.5 microns. Emission in the 3.6 micron filter arises from sunlight scattered by dust grains; these images generally…

Earth and Planetary Astrophysics · Physics 2015-06-16 William T. Reach , Michael S. Kelley , Jeremie Vaubaillon

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…

Comets, relics from the early solar system, consist of dust and ice. The ice sublimates as comets approach the Sun, ejecting dust from their nuclei seen as activity. Different volatiles sublimate at different Sun-comet distances and eject…

Earth and Planetary Astrophysics · Physics 2024-08-06 Yuna G. Kwon , Stefano Bagnulo , Johannes Markkanen , Ludmilla Kolokolova , Jessica Agarwal , Manuela Lippi , Zuri Gray

We present observations of the disintegrating long-period comet C/2019 J2 (Palomar) taken to determine the nature of the object and the cause of its demise. The data are consistent with break-up of a sub-kilometer nucleus into a debris…

Earth and Planetary Astrophysics · Physics 2019-10-02 David Jewitt , Jane Luu

An explosion on comet 17P/Holmes occurred on 2007 Oct 23, projecting particulate debris of a wide range of sizes into the interplanetary medium. We observed the comet using the Spitzer spectrograph on 2007 Nov 10 and 2008 Feb 27, and the…

Earth and Planetary Astrophysics · Physics 2015-05-18 William T. Reach , Jeremie Vaubaillon , Carey M. Lisse , Mikel Holloway , Jeonghee Rho

We report measurements of eight primary volatiles (H2O, HCN, CH4, C2H6, CH3OH, C2H2, H2CO, and NH3) and two product species (OH and NH2) in comet 103P/Hartley-2 using high dispersion infrared spectroscopy. We quantified the long- and…

Recent observations show activity in long-period comet C/2017 K2 at heliocentric distances beyond the orbit of Uranus. With this as motivation, we constructed a simple model that takes a detailed account of gas transport modes and simulates…

Earth and Planetary Astrophysics · Physics 2022-01-19 Naceur Bouziani , David Jewitt

Far ultraviolet observations of comets yield information about the energetic processes that dissociate the sublimated gases from their primitive surfaces. Understanding which emission processes are dominant, their effects on the observed…

We monitor the inner coma of comet 41P/Tuttle-Giacobini-Kres\'{a}k searching for variations of its colour. Fast changes in colour of the comet 41P/Tuttle-Giacobini-Kres\'{a}k provide important clues for better understanding of the…

Earth and Planetary Astrophysics · Physics 2019-05-27 Igor Luk'yanyk , Evgenij Zubko , Marek Husárik , Oleksandra Ivanova , Ján Svoreň , Anton Kochergin , Alexandr Baransky , Gorden Videen

Cometary outgassing can produce torques that change the spin state of the nucleus, influencing the evolution and lifetimes of comets (1,2). If these torques spin up the rotation to the point that centripetal forces exceed the material…

Earth and Planetary Astrophysics · Physics 2018-01-12 Dennis Bodewits , Tony L. Farnham , Michael S. P. Kelley , Matthew M. Knight

We present observations of the detection of a faint high-latitude jet in the inner coma of comet 3I/ATLAS that coincides with the broad plume detected in visible images along PA $280 \pm 10^{\circ}$. A detailed analysis shows that the jet…

Earth and Planetary Astrophysics · Physics 2025-12-16 M. Serra-Ricart , J. Licandro , M. R. Alarcon

Context. On October 24, 2007 the periodic comet 17P/Holmes underwent an astonishing outburst that increased its apparent total brightness from magnitude V\sim17 up to V\sim2.5 in roughly two days. We report on Wendelstein 0.8 m telescope…

Astrophysics · Physics 2009-11-13 M. Montalto , A. Riffeser , U. Hopp , S. Wilke , G. Carraro

(60558) 174P/Echeclus is an unusual object that belongs to a class of minor planets called Centaurs, which may be intermediate between Kuiper Belt Objects and Jupiter Family comets. It is sporadically active throughout its orbit at…

Earth and Planetary Astrophysics · Physics 2017-04-28 Kacper Wierzchos , Maria Womack , Gal Sarid

Comet 12P/Pons-Brooks is a periodic comet with an orbital period of approximately 71 years. Because of the period duration, aphelion of 35.3 au, and highly inclined orbit (74.2 deg), it is classified as a Halley-type comet. In this work, we…

We report results of polarimetric observations of comet 21P/Giacobini-Zinner made at phase angles, {\alpha}=76-78 deg, between 10 and 17 of September 2018, and compare them with previous measurements. We find significant variations in the…