Disintegration of Long-Period Comet C/2019 Y4 (ATLAS): I. Hubble Space Telescope Observations
Quanzhi Ye, David Jewitt, Man-To Hui, Qicheng Zhang, Jessica Agarwal, Michael S. P. Kelley, Yoonyoung Kim, Jing Li, Tim Lister, Max Mutchler, Harold A. Weaver
Near-Sun Comet C/2019 Y4 (ATLAS) is the first member of a long-period comet group observed to disintegrate well before perihelion. Here we present our investigation into this disintegration event using images obtained in a 3-day {\it Hubble Space Telescope} (\hst) campaign. We identify two fragment clusters produced by the initial disintegration event, corresponding to fragments C/2019 Y4-A and C/2019 Y4-B identified in ground-based data. These two clusters started with similar integrated brightness, but exhibit different evolutionary behavior. C/2019 Y4-A was much shorter-lived compared to C/2019 Y4-B, and showed signs of significant mass-loss and changes in size distribution throughout the 3-day campaign. The cause of the initial fragmentation is undetermined by the limited evidence but crudely compatible with either the spin-up disruption of the nucleus or runaway sublimation of sub-surface supervolatile ices, either of which would lead to the release of a large amount of gas as inferred from the significant bluing of the comet observed shortly before the disintegration. Gas can only be produced by the sublimation of volatile ices, which must have survived at least one perihelion passage at a perihelion distance of $q=0.25$~au. We speculate that Comet ATLAS is derived from the ice-rich interior of a non-uniform, kilometer-wide progenitor that split during its previous perihelion. This suggests that comets down to a few kilometers in diameter can still possess complex, non-uniform interiors that can protect ices against intense solar heating.
The Solar Wind ANisotropies (SWAN) all-sky hydrogen Lyman-alpha camera on the SOlar and Heliospheric Observer (SOHO) satellite observed the hydrogen coma of comet C/2017 S3 (PanSTARRS) for the last month of its activity from 2018 July 4 to August 4 and what appears to have been its final disintegration just 11 days before its perihelion on August 15. The hydrogen coma indicated water production had a small outburst on July 8 at a heliocentric distance of 1.1AU and then a much larger one on July 20 at 0.8 AU. Over the following two weeks the water production dropped by more than a factor of ten…
A sequence of events, dominated by two outbursts and ending with the preperihelion disintegration of comet C/2017 S3, is examined. The onset times of the outbursts are determined with high accuracy from the light curve of the nuclear condensation before it disappeared following the second outburst. While the brightness of the condensation was declining precipitously, the total brightness continued to grow in the STEREO-A's HI1 images until two days before perihelion. The red magnitudes measured in these images refer to a uniform cloud of nuclear fragments, 2200 km^2 in projected area, that beg…
Comet C/2011 W3 (Lovejoy): Orbit Determination, Outbursts, Disintegration of Nucleus, Dust-Tail Morphology, and Relationship to New Cluster of Bright Sungrazers
New periodic comet P/2019 LD2 (ATLAS) located on unstable quasi-Trojan orbit still an interesting object to study in the last years. We present the results of broadband observations of comet P/2019 LD2 (ATLAS) performed at the Sanglokh observatory of the Institute of Astrophysics, National Academy of Sciences of Tajikistan for 5 nights in August 2020. The dependence of the Afrho parameters of the comet on the aperture radius is measured. We obtained the coma corrected upper limit of the cometary radius Rn not more than 6.1 +- 0.1 km and calculated the absolute magnitude H0 = 11.41 +- 0.03. Fin…
Intrinsically faint comets in nearly-parabolic orbits with perihelion distances much smaller than 1 AU exhibit strong propensity for suddenly disintegrating at a time not long before perihelion, as shown by Bortle (1991). Evidence from available observations of such comets suggests that the disintegration event usually begins with an outburst and that the debris is typically a massive cloud of dust grains that survives over a limited period of time. Recent CCD observations revealed, however, that also surviving could be a sizable fragment, resembling a devolatilized aggregate of loosely-bound …
We present an analysis of the photometric and spectroscopic observations of the split comet C/2019 Y4 (ATLAS). Observations were carried out on the 14th and 16th of April 2020 when the heliocentric distances of the comet were 1.212 and 1.174 au, its geocentric distances 0.998 and 0.991 au, and the phase angle 52.9° and 54.5°, respectively. The comet was observed with the 6-m BTA telescope of the Special Astrophysical Observatory (Russia) with the SCORPIO-2 multi-mode focal reducer. The narrow-band BC and RC cometary filters in the continuum were used. We identified numerous emissions of the CN…
We present observations of the disintegrating long-period comet C/2019 J2 (Palomar) taken to determine the nature of the object and the cause of its demise. The data are consistent with break-up of a sub-kilometer nucleus into a debris cloud of mass or order 1e9 kg, peaking on UT 2019 May 24+/-$12. This is 56 days before perihelion and at a heliocentric distance of 1.9 AU. We consider potential mechanisms of disintegration. Tidal disruption is ruled-out, because the comet has not passed within the Roche sphere of any planet. Impact disruption is implausible, because the comet orbit is highly i…
We present a study of C/2019 Y4 (ATLAS) using Sloan $gri$ observations from mid-January to early April 2020. During this timespan, the comet brightened with a growth in the effective cross-section of $\left(2.0 \pm 0.1 \right) \times 10^{2}$ m$^{2}$ s$^{-1}$ from the beginning to $\sim$70 d preperihelion in late March 2020, followed by a brightness fade and the comet gradually losing the central condensation. Meanwhile, the comet became progressively bluer, and was even bluer than the Sun ($g - r \approx 0.2$) when the brightness peaked, likely due to activation of subterranean fresh volatiles…
Dust and Volatiles in the Disintegrating Comet C/2019 Y4 (ATLAS)
National Astronomical Observatories, Chinese Academy of Sciences（中国科学院国家天文台）；University of Chinese Academy of Sciences（中国科学院大学）；University of Missouri（密苏里大学）；Universidad Diego Portales（迭戈帕托莱斯大学）；Nanjing Institute of Astronomical Optics & Technology, Chinese Academy of Sciences（中国科学院南京天文光学技术研究所）
Comet disintegration proceeds both through sublimation and discrete splitting events. The cross-sectional area of material ejected by a comet may, within days, become many times greater than that of the Earth, making encounters with such debris much more likely than collisions with the nucleus itself. The hierarchic fragmentation and sublimation of a large comet in a short period orbit may yield many hundreds of such short-lived clusters. We model this evolution with a view to assessing the probability of an encounter which might have significant terrestrial effects, through atmospheric dustin…
Centimeter-wave OH observations of comets 12P/Pons-Brooks and C/2023 A3 (Tsuchinshan-ATLAS) with FAST
Guizhou Normal University（贵州师范大学）；Shanghai Astronomical Observatory, Chinese Academy of Sciences（中国科学院上海天文台）；Xinjiang Astronomical Observatory, Chinese Academy of Sciences（中国科学院新疆天文台）；Sun Yat-sen University（中山大学）；National Central University（中央大学）；Instituto de Estudios Astrofísicos（天体物理研究所）
High-resolution optical spectroscopy reveals the distinctive volatile composition of the interstellar comet 3I/ATLAS
STAR Institute, Université de Liège（列日大学STAR研究所）；Institute for Astronomy, University of Edinburgh, Royal Observatory（爱丁堡大学天文研究所皇家天文台）；Physics Department, Edmund C. Leach Science Center, Auburn University（奥本大学艾德蒙·C·利奇科学中心物理系）；School of Physical and Chemical Sciences – Te Kura Matū, University of Canterbury（坎特伯雷大学物理与化学科学学院）；Faculty of Science and Engineering, Northumbria University（诺森比亚大学科学与工程学部）；Koyama Space Science Institute, Kyoto Sangyo University（京都产业大学小山宇宙科学研究所）；INAF – Osservatorio Astrofisico di Arcetri（意大利国家天体物理研究所阿切特里天文台）
Unveiling the Nature of C/2023 A3 (Tsuchinshan-ATLAS): A Multi-Technique Observational Approach
Physical Research Laboratory（物理研究实验室）；Indian Institute of Technology Gandhinagar（甘地纳加尔印度理工学院）；STAR Institute, University of Liege（列日大学STAR研究所）；Indian Institute of Astrophysics（印度天体物理研究所）；Cepheid Observatory（造父变星天文台）
The Solar Wind ANisotropies (SWAN) all-sky hydrogen Lyman-alpha camera on the SOlar and Heliosphere Observer (SOHO) satellite makes daily images of the entire sky to monitor the three-dimensional distribution of solar wind and solar radiation via its imprint on the stream of interstellar hydrogen that flows through the solar system. In the process it also records the distribution of the hydrogen comae of comets. We report here the analyses of six comets originally from the Oort Cloud observed during the 2017-2020 period by SWAN: C/2015 V2 (Johnson), C/2019 Y1 (ATLAS), C/2017 T2 (PanSTARRS), C/…
The European Space Agency's Solar Orbiter spacecraft will pass approximately downstream of the position of comet C/2019 Y4 (ATLAS) in late May and early June 2020. We predict that the spacecraft may encounter the comet's ion tail around 2020 May 31-June 1, and that the comet's dust tail may be crossed on 2020 June 6. We outline the solar wind features and dust grain collisions that the spacecraft's instruments may detect when crossing the comet's two tails. Solar Orbiter will also pass close to the orbital path of C/2020 F8 (SWAN) on 2020 May 22, but we believe that it is unlikely to detect an…
The Kuiper belt objects, the Centaurs, and the Jupiter-family comets form an evolutionary continuum of small outer Solar System objects, and their study allows us to gain insight into the history and evolution of the Solar System. Broadband photometry can be used to measure their phase curves, allowing a first-order probe into the surface properties of these objects, though limited telescope time makes measuring accurate phase curves difficult. We make use of serendipitous broadband photometry from the long-baseline, high-cadence ATLAS survey to measure the phase curves for a sample of 18 Kuip…
We identify a sample of 27 long-period comets for which both non-gravitational accelerations and Lyman-alpha based gas production rates are available. Seven of the 27 comets (i.e. 25 percent) did not survive perihelion because of nucleus fragmentation or complete disintegration. Empirically, the latter nuclei have the smallest gas production rates and the largest non-gravitational accelerations, which are both indicators of small size. Specifically, the disintegrating nuclei have a median radius of only 0.41 km, one quarter of the 1.60 km median radius of those surviving perihelion. The disint…
We present an analysis of the photometric data of comets 47P/Ashbrook -Jackson, 65P/Gunn, 362P/2008 GO98, and P/2017 S5 (ATLAS) observed at Kyiv Comet Station (MPC code - 585) in 2017. The upper limits of radii for cometary nuclei, Afrho parameters, and color-indexes are measured.
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 dynamical evolution of the Jupiter co-orbital comet P/2019 LD2 (ATLAS). We present results of an observational study carried out with the 10.4m Gran Telescopio Canarias (GTC) that includes image analyses using a MC dust tail fitting code to characterize its activity, and spectroscopic studies to search for gas emission. We also present N-body simulations to ex…
Water Production of Interstellar Comet 3I/ATLAS from SOHO/SWAN Observations after Perihelion
University of Michigan（密歇根大学）；Finnish Meteorological Institute（芬兰气象局）；LATMOS/IPSL UVSQ Université Paris-Saclay, Sorbonne Université, CNRS（巴黎萨克雷大学、索邦大学、法国国家科学研究中心LATMOS/IPSL联合实验室）；ACRI-st；LIRA, Observatoire de Paris（巴黎天文台LIRA）
利用SOHO/SWAN观测，研究星际彗星3I/ATLAS水生产率，发现其在近日点后9天的水生产率为3.17 x 10^29 s^-1，随后逐渐下降。
Secular Light Curve of Exocomet 3I/ATLAS, and its Location on a Comet Evolutionary Diagram
University of Antioquia（安蒂奥基亚大学）；International University of Valencia, VIU（瓦伦西亚国际大学）；AstroExplor Observatory（AstroExplor天文台）；Astronomy Research Center CIDATA（CIDATA天文学研究中心）；Raul Melia Observatory（劳尔·梅利亚天文台）；Pekos Planetary（佩科斯行星）；Carl Sagan Planetary（卡尔·萨根行星）；Instituto de Educación Técnica Profesional（专业技术教育学院）
IFU Observations of Comet 3I/ATLAS = C/2025 N1 (ATLAS) using the Hobby-Eberly Telescope with the VIRUS Instrument
McDonald Observatory, University of Texas at Austin（德克萨斯大学奥斯汀分校麦克唐纳天文台）；Hobby Eberly Telescope, University of Texas at Austin（德克萨斯大学奥斯汀分校霍比-埃伯利望远镜）；STAR Institute, University of Liège（列日大学STAR研究所）；Koyama Space Science Institute, Kyoto Sangyo University（京都产业大学小山宇宙科学研究所）；Department of Physics and Astronomy, Appalachian State University（阿巴拉契亚州立大学物理与天文学系）
Small bodies in the solar system are conventionally classified into asteroids and comets. However, it is recently found that a small number of objects can exhibit properties of both asteroids and comets. Some are more consistent with asteroids despite episodic ejections and are labeled as "active asteroids", while some might be aging comets with depleting volatiles. Ejecta produced by active asteroids and/or dormant comets are potentially detectable as meteor showers at the Earth if they are in Earth-crossing orbits, allowing us to retrieve information about the historic activities of these ob…
Perihelion observations of interstellar comet 3I/ATLAS with the IRAM 30-m telescope
LIRA, Observatoire de Paris, PSL Research University, CNRS, Sorbonne Université, Université de Paris（巴黎天文台）；IRAM（红外毫米波天文台）；NASA Goddard Space Flight Center（美国宇航局戈达德太空飞行中心）；Department of Physics, Catholic University of America（美利坚天主教大学物理系）；Department of Physics, American University（美利坚大学物理系）
Comet P/2019 LD2 has orbital elements currently resembling those of a Jupiter Trojan, and therefore superficially appears to represent a unique opportunity to study the volatile content and active behavior of a member of this population for the first time. However, numerical integrations show that it was previously a Centaur before reaching its current Jupiter Trojan-like orbit in 2018 July, and is expected to return to being a Centaur in 2028 February, before eventually becoming a Jupiter-family comet in 2063 February. The case of P/2019 LD2 highlights the need for mechanisms to quickly and r…
Interstellar Comet 3I/ATLAS: Evidence for Galactic Cosmic Ray Processing
Royal Belgian Institute for Space Aeronomy (BIRA-IASB)（皇家比利时空间气动力学研究所）；Science Systems and Application Inc.（科学系统与应用公司）；Nasa Langley Research Center（美国国家航空航天局兰利研究中心）；Centre for mathematical Plasma Astrophysics（数学等离子体天体物理学中心）
A 2000-2017 set of long-period comets with high-quality orbits of perihelion distance <1 AU is used to show that the objects that perish shortly before perihelion are nearly exclusively the Oort Cloud comets, especially those with perihelia within 0.6 AU of the Sun, intrinsically fainter, and dust poor. Their propensity for disintegration is much higher than predicted by Bortle's perihelion survival rule, prompting the author to propose a new synoptic index to be tested in future prognostication efforts. By their susceptibility to demise near the Sun, the nuclei of Oort Cloud comets differ dra…
Gemini and Apache Point Multi-band Optical Imaging Characterization of Fragmenting Long-period Comet C/2025 K1 (ATLAS)
Johns Hopkins University（约翰斯·霍普金斯大学）；Eureka Scientific（尤里卡科学公司）；Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory（约翰斯·霍普金斯大学应用物理实验室）；California Institute of Technology（加州理工学院）；University of Oklahoma（俄克拉荷马大学）；European Space Agency（欧洲空间局）；Jet Propulsion Laboratory, California Institute of Technology（加州理工学院喷气推进实验室）
Pre-perihelion evolution of the NiI/FeI abundance ratio in the coma of the interstellar comet 3I/ATLAS. From extreme to normal
Université de Liège（列日大学）；University of Edinburgh（爱丁堡大学）；Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile（智利天主教 Pontificia 大学）；University of Canterbury（坎特伯雷大学）；University of Helsinki（赫尔辛基大学）
