Related papers: Are 2I/Borisov and Oort Cloud Comets Alike?
We run simulations to determine the expected distribution of orbital elements of nearly isotropic comets (NICs) in the outer solar system, assuming that these comets originate in the Oort Cloud at thousands of AU and are perturbed into the…
We reported the monitoring results on spectrophotometry, photometry and imaging of comet 103P/Hartley 2 obtained at Lulin (1m), Calar Alto (2.2m) and Beijing Astronomical (2.16m) Observatory from April to December 2010. We found that a dust…
We present an analysis of comet activity based on the Spitzer Space Telescope component of the Survey of the Ensemble Physical Properties of Cometary Nuclei. We show that the survey is well suited to measuring the activity of Jupiter-family…
As comets journey into the inner solar system, they deliver particulates and volatile gases into their comae that reveal the most primitive materials in the solar system. Cometary dust particles provide crucial information for assessing the…
A morphological and photometric analysis of the naked-eye long-period comet C/2022 E3 (ZTF) before perihelion is presented in this study. The observation images taken by the Zwicky Transient Facility survey telescope from July 2022 to…
Comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko (67P) was imaged with the 2m telescope at Mt. Wendelstein Observatory in the Alps. Coma and tail monitoring was performed during 51 nights between 22 August 2015 and 9 May 2016. The images through r and i…
The unprecedented astrometry from Gaia DR2 provides us with an opportunity to study in detail molecular clouds in the solar neighbourhood. Extracting the wealth of information in these data remains a challenge, however. We have further…
For the second discovered interstellar comet 2I/Borisov we searched for a candidate for its home system. We will never be sure which star or stellar system does this comet come from but obtaining a very small relative velocity and a…
We present high-resolution optical spectroscopy of interstellar comet 3I/ATLAS (C/2025 N1) obtained with the High Dispersion Spectrograph mounted on the Subaru Telescope on UT 2026 January 7, when the comet was on its outbound trajectory at…
On November 4th, 2010, the Deep Impact eXtended Investigation (DIXI) successfully encountered comet 103P/Hartley 2, when it was at a heliocentric distance of 1.06 AU. Spatially resolved near-IR spectra of comet Hartley 2 were acquired in…
Interstellar objects provide a direct window into the environmental conditions around stars other than the Sun. The recent discovery of 3I/ATLAS, a new interstellar comet, offers a unique opportunity to investigate the physical and chemical…
In this work we aim to characterise the dust motion in the inner coma of comet 67P/Churyumov- Gerasimenko to provide constraints for theoretical 3D coma models. The OSIRIS camera onboard the Rosetta mission was able for the first time to…
As an Oort Cloud object with a record small perihelion distance of 2.7 Rsun and discovered more than a year before its encounter with the Sun, comet C/2012 S1 is a subject of considerable scientific interest. Its activity along the orbit's…
Our goal was to characterize the distant gaseous and dust activity of comet C\2012 S1 (ISON), inbound, from observations of H2O, CO and the dust coma in the far-infrared and submillimeter domains. In this paper, we report observations…
We describe the physical characteristics of interstellar comet 3I/ATLAS, discovered on 2025 July 1 by the Asteroid Terrestrial-impact Last Alert System. The comet has eccentricity, $e$ $\simeq$ 6.08 and velocity at infinity, v$_{\infty}$…
The 2023 perihelion passage of comet C/2022 E3 (ZTF) afforded an opportunity to measure the abundances and spatial distributions of coma volatiles in an Oort cloud comet at high spatial resolution near its close approach to Earth…
It is well known that the dust properties of the diffuse interstellar medium exhibit variations towards different sight-lines on a large scale. We have investigated the variability of the dust characteristics on a small scale, and from…
We present new, ice species-specific New Horizons/Alice upper gas coma production limits from the 01 Jan 2019 MU69/Arrokoth flyby of Gladstone et al. (2021) and use them to make predictions about the rarity of majority hypervolatile (CO,…
Comet P/2010A2 LINEAR is a good candidate for membership with the Main Belt Comet family. It was observed with several telescopes (ESO NTT, La Silla; Gemini North, Mauna Kea; UH 2.2m, Mauna Kea) from 14 Jan. until 19 Feb. 2010 in order to…
Jupiter co-orbital comets have orbits that are not long-term stable. They may experience flybys with Jupiter close enough to trigger tidal disruptions like the one suffered by comet Shoemaker-Levy 9. Our aim was to study the activity and…