Related papers: Disintegration of Active Asteroid P/2016 G1 (PANST…
We present archival observations demonstrating that main belt asteroid (6478) Gault has an extensive history of comet-like activity. Outbursts have taken place during multiple epochs since 2013 and at distances extending as far as 2.68 au,…
We investigate whether there may be one or many companions orbiting at close distance to the light cylinder around the extremely intermittent pulsars PSR B1931+24 and PSR J1841-0500. These pulsars, behaving in a standard way when they are…
Debris disks and asteroid belts are expected to form around young pulsars due to fallback material from their original supernova explosions. Disk material may migrate inwards and interact with a pulsar's magnetosphere, causing changes in…
We investigate various short-warning mitigation scenarios via fragmentation for a hypothetical impact of asteroid 2023 NT1, a Near-Earth Object (NEO) that was discovered on July 15, 2023, two days after its closest approach to Earth on July…
The arrival of the robustly hyperbolic asteroid A/2017 U1 has potentially interesting ramifications for the planet-formation process. Although extrapolations from a sample size of one are necessarily uncertain, order-of-magnitude estimates…
In recent years, nine small near-Earth asteroids were discovered a few hours before the collision with the Earth: these are about one meter in diameter objects that have all disintegrated in the atmosphere, generating bright fireballs…
Potentially hazardous asteroid (185851) 2000 DP107 was the first binary near-Earth asteroid to be imaged. Radar observations in 2000 provided images at 75 m resolution that revealed the shape, orbit, and spin-up formation mechanism of the…
The massive (13,000-26,000 Msolar), young (15-30 Myr) Large Magellanic Cloud star cluster NGC 1818 reveals an unexpected increasing binary frequency with radius for F-type stars (1.3-2.2 Msolar). This is in contrast to many older star…
Luminous interacting supernovae are a class of stellar explosions whose progenitors underwent vigorous mass loss in the years prior to core-collapse. While the mechanism by which this material is ejected is still debated, obtaining the full…
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…
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.…
We report a long campaign to track the 1.8 hr photometric wave in the recurrent nova T Pyxidis, using the global telescope network of the Center for Backyard Astrophysics. During 1996-2011, that wave was highly stable in amplitude and…
Lada et al. recently presented a detailed near-infrared extinction map of Globule G2 in the Coalsack molecular cloud complex, showing that this starless core has a well-defined central extinction minimum. We propose a model for G2 in which…
We fit 54,296 sparsely-sampled asteroid lightcurves in the Palomar Transient Factory to a combined rotation plus phase-function model. Each lightcurve consists of 20+ observations acquired in a single opposition. Using 805 asteroids in our…
Near-Earth Asteroids can be hazardous to the Earth, due to their orbital characteristics and proximity to inner Solar System planets. Using three sets of CCD images collected in June and July 2011, the orbital elements of asteroid 1994 PC1…
The nearby and young M star AU Mic is surrounded by a debris disk in which we previously identified a series of large-scale arch-like structures that have never been seen before in any other debris disk and that move outward at high…
We present visible and mid-infrared imagery and photometry of temporary Jovian co-orbital comet P/2019 LD$_2$ taken with HST/WFC3, Spitzer/IRAC, the GROWTH telescope network, visible spectroscopy from Keck/LRIS and archival ZTF observations…
We present 1.3mm continuum and spectral line images of two massive molecular clumps P1 and P2 in the G28.34+0.06 region with the Submillimeter Array. While the two clumps contain masses of 1000 and 880 \msun, respectively, P1 has a…
Epsilon Aurigae is a complicated binary star that undergoes optical eclipses every 27 years, including the present year. An update is given here on the array of photometric and spectroscopic observations underway, thanks to the eclipse…
133P/Elst-Pizarro is an object that has been described as either an active asteroid or a cometary object in the main asteroid belt. Here we present a photometric and polarimetric study of this object in an attempt to infer additional…