The outburst and subsequent brightness evolution of Comet 17P/Holmes has been observed using the MMT Observatory's All-Sky Camera (Pickering 2006) on Mt. Hopkins near Tucson, Arizona, USA.
We analyzed the Subaru/Suprime-Cam images of 73P/Schwassmann-Wachmann 3B and detected no fewer than 154 mini-comets. We applied synchrone-syndyne analysis, modified for rocket effect analysis, to the mini-fragment spatial distribution. We found that most of these mini-comets were ejected from fragment B by an outburst occurring around 1 April 2006.
The outburst of Comet 17P/Holmes was so violent that it blew huge chunks of the comet's surface clean off, according to a new analysis of images taken in November 2007.