Related papers: Summer fireworks on comet 67P
Context. Comets are primitive objects, remnants of the volatile-rich planetesimals from which the solar system condensed. Knowing their structure and composition is thus crucial for the understanding of our origins. After the successful…
We present observations from the Rosetta Plasma Consortium of the effects of stormy solar wind on comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko. Four corotating interaction regions (CIRs), where the first event has possibly merged with a CME, are traced…
Molecular oxygen has been detected in the coma of comet 67P/Churyumov--Gerasimenko with a mean abundance of 3.80 $\pm$ 0.85\% by the ROSINA mass spectrometer on board the Rosetta spacecraft. To account for the presence of this species in…
Following our previous detection of ubiquitous H2O and O2 absorption against the far-UV continuum of stars located near the nucleus of Comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko, we present a serendipitously observed stellar occultation that occurred…
We present wide-field imaging of the 2007 outburst of Comet 17P/Holmes obtained serendipitously by SuperWASP-North on 17 nights over a 42-night period beginning on the night (2007 October 22-23) immediately prior to the outburst. Photometry…
In this paper, we present a unique data set of more than one year's worth of regular observations of comet C/2013 A1(Siding Spring) with TRAPPIST in Chile, along with low-resolution spectra obtained with the ESO/VLT FORS 2 instrument. The…
We present observations carried out using the 10.4 m Gran Telescopio Canarias and an interpretative model of the dust environment of activated asteroid 313P/Gibbs. We discuss three different models relating to different values of the dust…
We present a study of the current state of knowledge concerning spacecraft operations and potential hazards while operating near a comet nucleus. Starting from simple calculations comparing the cometary coma environment to benign conditions…
Solar wind charge-changing reactions are of paramount importance to the physico-chemistry of the atmosphere of a comet because they mass-load the solar wind through an effective conversion of fast, light solar wind ions into slow, heavy…
Tiny meteoroids entering the Earth's atmosphere and inducing meteor showers have long been thought to originate partly from cometary dust. Together with other dust particles, they form a huge cloud around the Sun, the zodiacal cloud. From…
A quantitative understanding of cometary outbursts requires robust constraints on the size distribution of ejected particles, which governs outburst dynamics and underpins estimates of released gas and dust. In the absence of direct…
We present infrared images and spectra of comets 2P/Encke, 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko, and C/2001 HT50 (LINEAR-NEAT) as part of a larger program to observe comets inside of 5 AU from the sun with the Spitzer Space Telescope. The nucleus of…
We present OSIRIS/NAC observations of decimetre-sized, likely ice-containing aggregates ejected from a confined region on the surface of comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko. The images were obtained in January 2016 when the comet was at 2 AU…
We observed comet 96P/Machholz 1 on a total of 9 nights before and after perihelion during its 2017/2018 apparition. Both its unusually small perihelion distance and the observed fragmentation during multiple apparitions make 96P an object…
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…
Comets are thought to preserve almost pristine dust particles, thus providing a unique sample of the properties of the early solar nebula. The microscopic properties of this dust played a key part in particle aggregation during the…
This Letter reports observations of an event that connects all major classes of solar eruptions: those that erupt fully into the heliosphere versus those that fail and are confined to the Sun, and those that eject new flux into the…
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…
The Ursid meteor shower is an annual shower that usually shows little activity. However, its Zenith Hourly Rate sometimes increases, usually either when its parent comet, 8P/Tuttle, is close to its perihelion or its aphelion. Outbursts when…
Context. Dust halos or shells, along with linear dark structures along the axes of dust tails, are commonly observed in many long-period comets near perihelion. Examples range from the recent C/2023 A3 (Tsuchinshan-ATLAS) to historical…