Comets & Asteroids

IAU circular No. 9078, issued on 2009, Sept. 29, announces that an asteroidal object, discovered with a 0.45-m f/2.8 reflector + CCD by the "La Sagra Sky Survey" (Spain), has been reported to show cometary features by several observers, involved in its astrometric follow-up.

A new model for comet production revises the theory of their origins

Near-Earth asteroid-comet transition object 107P/ (4015) Wilson-Harrington is a possible target of the joint European Space Agency (ESA) and Japanese Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) Marco Polo sample return mission. Physical studies of this object are relevant to this mission, and also to understanding its asteroidal or cometary nature.

IAUC nr. 9075, issued on 2009 Sept. 24th, announces the discovery of another comet by Robert McNaught, named P/2009 S2.

Toward the end of September, the sun will turn a spotlight on the asteroid Juno, giving that bulky lump of rock a rare featured cameo in the night sky.

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.

Comet 147P/Kushida-Muramatsu was captured as a temporary moon of Jupiter in the mid-20th century and remained trapped in an irregular orbit for about twelve years.

Jupiter has been caught 'kidnapping' comets when they venture too close, forcing them to become temporary satellites of the great planet before they are slingshot away or spiral into Jupiter, according to new data presented at this week's European Planetary Science Congress (EPSC) in Potsdam, Germany.

IAU Circular nr.9071, issued on 2009, Sep. 10, announces the discovery of a new comet by R. H. McNaught, named C/2009 R1 (McNAUGHT). This comet may reach magnitude 5 at the end of June 2010, but the elongation will be very small (only 18 degree on June 27, 2010) and so the observing conditions.

McNaught has just discovered his 50th comet. He spotted it, as he does most often these days, on images taken with the 20-inch (0.5-meter) Uppsala Schmidt telescope at Siding Spring Observatory in Australia.

We present numerical simulations to model the production of observable long-period comets (LPCs) from the Oort Cloud, a vast reservoir of icy bodies surrounding the Sun. We show that inner Oort Cloud objects can penetrate Jupiter's orbit via a largely unexplored dynamical pathway, and they are an important, if not the dominant, source of known LPCs.

The Central Bureau for Astronomical Telegrams (CBAT) -- operated by the Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory (SAO) in Cambridge, Massachusetts, for the International Astronomical Union (IAU) -- has announced the recipients of the 2009 Edgar Wilson Award for the discovery of comets by amateurs during the calendar year ending June 11.

The 2009 Edgar Wilson Award honors amateur astronomers who discovered five different comets in the last 12 months, proving that backyard comet hunting still thrives in this age of automated professional sky patrols.

The Quadrantid shower, one of the most intense showers, has been observed at the beginning of January each year. However, the origin of the meteors is still unknown. It was Hasegawa (1979) who first suggested comet C/1490 Y1 to be the likely origin of the shower based on the historical records of East Asia.

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.

Three new comets have been discovered in the last few days.....

A new black spot about as big as the Earth has been found on Jupiter. Astronomers say it was caused by an impact.

The story of the possible new impact on Jupiter