Search Publications
The Wagging Plasma Tail of Comet C/2020 S3 (Erasmus)
Jewitt, David; Li, Jing; Kim, Yoonyoung
Long-period comet C/2020 S3 (Erasmus) reached perihelion at 0.398 au on UT 2020 December 12.67, making it a bright, near-Sun object. Images taken between 2020 mid-November and December using the HI-1 camera and COR2 coronagraph on board STEREO-A, as well as the LASCO/C3 coronagraph on board SoHO, show significant variations in the plasma tail posi…
Destruction of Long-period Comets
Jewitt, David
We identify a sample of 27 long-period comets for which both nongravitational accelerations and Lyα-based gas production rates are available. Seven of the 27 comets (i.e., ~25%) did not survive perihelion because of nucleus fragmentation or complete disintegration. Empirically, the latter nuclei have the smallest gas production rates and the large…
The Lingering Death of Periodic Near-Sun Comet 323P/SOHO
Mutchler, Max; Kracht, Rainer; Tholen, David J. +4 more
We observed near-Sun comet 323P/SOHO for the first time using ground and space telescopes. In late 2020 December, the object was recovered at Subaru showing no cometary features on its way to perihelion. However, in our postperihelion observations, it developed a long narrow tail mimicking a disintegrated comet. The ejecta, composed of at least mi…
Solar Coronal Mass Ejections Plasma Diagnostics Expressed as Potential Stellar CME Signatures
Raymond, John C.; Wilson, Maurice L.
Solar coronal mass ejections (CMEs) have a strong association with solar flares that is not fully understood. This characteristic of our Sun's magnetic activity may also occur on other stars, but the lack of successfully detected stellar CMEs makes it difficult to perform statistical studies that might show a similar association between CMEs and f…
VLBI Data Processing on Coronal Radio-sounding Experiments of Mars Express
Zhang, Peijin; Xiong, Ming; Xia, Bo +13 more
The ESA's Mars Express solar corona experiments were performed at two solar conjunctions in the years 2015 and 2017 by a number of radio telescopes in the European VLBI Network. This paper presents the methods to measure the frequency and phase fluctuations of the spacecraft radio signal, and the applications to study the characteristics of the pl…
Supercatastrophic Disruption of Asteroids in the Context of SOHO Comet, Fireball, and Meteor Observations
Ye, Quanzhi; Brown, Peter; Clark, David +5 more
Granvik et al. reported an absence of asteroids on orbits with perihelia near the Sun that they attribute to the "supercatastrophic disruption" of these bodies. Here we investigate whether there is evidence for this process among other bodies with similarly low perihelia: near-Earth asteroids, Solar and Heliospheric Observatory (SOHO) comets, and …
A Fast, Two-dimensional Gaussian Process Method Based on Celerite: Applications to Transiting Exoplanet Discovery and Characterization
Foreman-Mackey, Daniel; Gordon, Tyler A.; Agol, Eric
Gaussian processes (GPs) are commonly used as a model of stochastic variability in astrophysical time series. In particular, GPs are frequently employed to account for correlated stellar variability in planetary transit light curves. The efficient application of GPs to light curves containing thousands to tens of thousands of data points has been …
New Insights into Interstellar Object 1I/2017 U1 (‘Oumuamua) from SOHO/STEREO Nondetections
Knight, Matthew M.; Hui, Man-To
Object 1I/2017 U1 (‘Oumuamua) is the first interstellar small body ever discovered in the solar system. By the time of discovery, it had already passed perihelion. To investigate the behavior of ‘Oumuamua around perihelion, we searched for it in Solar and Heliospheric Observatory (SOHO) and Solar TErrestrial RElations Observatory (STEREO) images f…
Water Production in Comets C/2011 l4 (PanSTARRS) and C/2012 f6 (Lemmon) from observations with SOHO/SWAN
Bertaux, J. -L.; Combi, M. R.; Quémerais, E. +3 more
Comets C/2011 L4 (PanSTARRS) and C/2012 F6 (Lemmon) were observed throughout their 2012-2013 apparitions with the Solar Wind Anisotropies (SWAN) all-sky hydrogen Lyα camera on board the Solar and Heliosphere Observatory (SOHO) satellite. SOHO has been in a halo orbit around the L1 Earth-Sun Lagrange point since early 1996 and has been observing th…
SOHO/SWAN Observations of Short-period Spacecraft Target Comets
Bertaux, J. -L.; Combi, M. R.; Quémerais, E. +3 more
SWAN, the Solar Wind ANisotropies all-sky hydrogen Lyα camera on the Solar and Heliospheric Observatory spacecraft that makes all-sky images of interplanetary neutral hydrogen, has an ongoing campaign to make special observations of comets, both short- and long-period ones, in addition to the serendipitous observations of comets as part of the all…