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46P/Wirtanen is a Jupiter-family comet, probably originating from the solar system’s Kuiper Belt, that now resides on a 5.4 yr elliptical orbit. During its 2018 apparition, comet 46P passed unusually close to the Earth (within 0.08 au), presenting an outstanding opportunity for close-up observations of its inner coma. Here we present observations of HCN, H ^13 CN, and HC ^15 N emission from 46P using the Atacama Compact Array. The data were analyzed using the SUBLIME non-LTE radiative transfer code to derive ^12 C/ ^13 C and ^14 N/ ^15 N ratios. The HCN/H ^13 CN ratio is found to be consistent with a lack of significant ^13 C fractionation, whereas the HCN/HC ^15 N ratio of 68 ± 27 (using our most conservative 1 σ uncertainties), indicates a strong enhancement in ^15 N compared with the solar and terrestrial values. The observed ^14 N/ ^15 N ratio is also significantly lower than the values of ∼140 found in previous comets, implying a strong ^15 N enrichment in 46P’s HCN. This indicates that the nitrogen in Jupiter-family comets could reach larger isotopic enrichments than previously thought, with implications for the diversity of ^14 N/ ^15 N ratios imprinted into icy bodies at the birth of the solar system.

Centaurs are small solar system objects on chaotic orbits in the giant planet region, forming an evolutionary continuum with the Kuiper Belt objects and Jupiter-family comets. Some Centaurs are known to exhibit cometary activity, though unlike comets, this activity tends not to correlate with heliocentric distance, and the mechanism behind it is currently poorly understood. We utilize serendipitous observations from the Asteroid Terrestrial-impact Last Alert System, Zwicky Transient Facility, Panoramic Survey Telescope and Rapid Response System, Dark Energy Survey, and Gaia in addition to targeted follow-up observations from the Las Cumbres Observatory, TRAnsiting Planets and PlanetesImals Small Telescope South (TRAPPIST-South), and Gemini North telescope to analyze an unexpected brightening exhibited by the known active Centaur (2060) Chiron in 2021. This is highly indicative of a cometary outburst. As of 2023 February, Chiron had still not returned to its prebrightening magnitude. We find Chiron's rotational lightcurve, phase curve effects, and possible high-albedo surface features to be unlikely causes of this observed brightening. We consider the most likely cause to be an epoch of either new or increased cometary activity, though we cannot rule out a possible contribution from Chiron's reported ring system, such as a collision of as-yet-unseen satellites shepherding the rings. We find no evidence for a coma in our Gemini or TRAPPIST-South observations, though this does not preclude the possibility that Chiron is exhibiting a coma that is too faint for observation or constrained to the immediate vicinity of the nucleus.

We present the Citizen Science program Active Asteroids and describe discoveries stemming from our ongoing project. Our NASA Partner program is hosted on the Zooniverse online platform and launched on 2021 August 31, with the goal of engaging the community in the search for active asteroids—asteroids with comet-like tails or comae. We also set out to identify other unusual active solar system objects, such as active Centaurs, active quasi-Hilda asteroids (QHAs), and Jupiter-family comets (JFCs). Active objects are rare in large part because they are difficult to identify, so we ask volunteers to assist us in searching for active bodies in our collection of millions of images of known minor planets. We produced these cutout images with our project pipeline that makes use of publicly available Dark Energy Camera data. Since the project launch, roughly 8300 volunteers have scrutinized some 430,000 images to great effect, which we describe in this work. In total, we have identified previously unknown activity on 15 asteroids, plus one Centaur, that were thought to be asteroidal (i.e., inactive). Of the asteroids, we classify four as active QHAs, seven as JFCs, and four as active asteroids, consisting of one main-belt comet (MBC) and three MBC candidates. We also include our findings concerning known active objects that our program facilitated, an unanticipated avenue of scientific discovery. These include discovering activity occurring during an orbital epoch for which objects were not known to be active, and the reclassification of objects based on our dynamical analyses.

The study of cometary composition is important for understanding our solar system's early evolutionary processes. Carbon dioxide (CO _2 ) is a common hypervolatile in comets that can drive activity but is more difficult to study than other hypervolatiles owing to severe telluric absorption. CO _2 can only be directly observed from space-borne assets. Therefore, a proxy is needed to measure CO _2 abundances in comets using ground-based observations. The flux ratio of the [O i ] λ 5577 line to the sum of the [O i ] λ 6300 and [O i ] λ 6364 lines (hereafter referred to as the [O i ] line ratio) has, with some success, been used in the past as such a proxy. We present an [O i ] line ratio analysis of comet 45P/Honda-Mrkos-Pajdušáková (HMP), using data obtained with the Tull Coudé Spectrograph on the 2.7 m Harlan J. Smith Telescope at McDonald Observatory, taken from UT 2017 February 21–23, when the comet was at heliocentric distances of 1.12–1.15 au. HMP is a hyperactive Jupiter-family comet (JFC). Icy grains driven out by CO _2 sublimation have been proposed as a driver of hyperactivity, but the CO _2 abundance of HMP has not been measured. From our [O i ] line ratio measurements, we find a CO _2 /H _2 O ratio for HMP of 22.9% ± 1.4%. We compare the CO _2 /H _2 O ratios to the active fractions of the nine comets (including HMP) in the literature that have data for both values. We find no correlation. These findings imply that CO _2 sublimation driving out icy grains is not the only factor influencing active fractions for cometary nuclei.

High-resolution near-infrared ground-based spectroscopic observations of comet 67P/Churyumov–Gerasimenko near its maximum activity in 2021 were conducted from the W. M. Keck Observatory, using the facility spectrograph NIRSPEC. 67P is the best-studied comet to date because of the unprecedented detail and insights provided by the Rosetta mission during 2014–2016. Because 67P is the only comet where the detailed abundances of many coma volatiles were measured in situ, determining its composition from the ground provides a unique opportunity to interpret Rosetta results within the context of the large database of ground-based compositional measurements of comets. However, previous apparitions, including in 2015, have been unfavorable for in-depth ground-based studies of parent volatiles in 67P. The 2021 apparition of 67P was thus the first-ever opportunity for such observations. We report gas spatial distributions, rotational temperatures, production rates, and relative abundances (or stringent upper limits) among seven volatile species: C _2 H _2 , C _2 H _6 , HCN, NH _3 , CH _3 OH, H _2 CO, and H _2 O. The measured abundances of trace species relative to water reveal near average or below average values compared to previous comets studied at infrared wavelengths. Both gas rotational temperatures and the spatial distributions of H _2 O, C _2 H _6 , and HCN measured with Keck-NIRSPEC in 2021 are consistent with the outgassing patterns revealed by Rosetta in 2015 at very similar heliocentric distance (post-perihelion). These results can be integrated with both Rosetta mission findings and ground-based cometary studies of the overall comet population, for which we encourage a wide-scale collaboration across measurement techniques.

We report production rates of H _2 O and nine trace molecules (C _2 H _6 , CH _4 , H _2 CO, CH _3 OH, HCN, NH _3 , C _2 H _2 , OCS, and CO) in long-period comet C/2020 S3 (Erasmus) using the high-resolution, cross-dispersed infrared spectrograph (iSHELL) at the NASA Infrared Telescope Facility, on two pre-perihelion dates at heliocentric distances R _h = 0.49 and 0.52 au. Our molecular abundances with respect to simultaneously or contemporaneously measured H _2 O indicate that S3 is depleted in CH _3 OH compared to its mean abundance relative to H _2 O among the overall comet population (Oort Cloud comets and Jupiter-family comets combined), whereas the eight other measured species have near-average abundances relative to H _2 O. In addition, compared to comets observed at R _h < 0.80 au at near-infrared wavelengths, S3 showed enhancement in the abundances of volatile species H _2 CO, NH _3 , and C _2 H _2 , indicating possible additional (distributed) sources in the coma for these volatile species. The spatial profiles of volatile species in S3 in different instrumental settings are dramatically different, which might suggest temporal variability in comet outgassing behavior between the nonsimultaneous measurements. The spatial distributions of simultaneously measured volatile species C _2 H _6 and CH _4 are nearly symmetric and closely track each other, while those of CO and HCN co-measured with H _2 O (using different instrument settings) are similar to each other and are asymmetric in the antisunward direction.

Ammonia (NH _3 ), likely the most abundant nitrogen-bearing molecule in cometary ices followed by hydrogen cyanide, is believed to be stored in the nucleus predominantly as a parent ice. However, spatial profiles of NH _3 observed in comet C/2014 Q2 (Lovejoy) in the near-infrared region are consistent with a distributed source contribution (Dello Russo et al. 2022). We developed the direct simulation Monte Carlo model of ammonia in cometary coma and applied it to comet C/2014 Q2 (Lovejoy). Results suggest that NH _3 molecules in the coma of C/2014 Q2 (Lovejoy) can plausibly originate from a combination of parent molecules of NH _3 in the coma and a NH _3 nucleus source. We demonstrate that the parents of NH _3 having photodissociation lifetimes of several hundreds of seconds or longer (at 1 au from the Sun) can explain the observed spatial profile of NH _3 in comet C/2014 Q2 (Lovejoy). Even though ammonia salts are possible candidates for parents of NH _3 , some simple ammonium salts such as NH _4 CN or NH _4 Cl may dissociate thermally within very short lifetimes after sublimation from the nucleus, so the contribution from those ammonium salts may be indistinguishable from the nucleus source. The lack of experimental data on photoprocesses for potential NH _3 parent molecules prevent us from identifying the origin of NH _3 in comets. Experimental and theoretical studies of photodissociation/ionization reactions of potential NH _3 parent molecules by the solar UV radiation field are encouraged for the future identification of NH _3 parents in comets.

The nondetection of a coma surrounding 1I/‘Oumuamua, the first discovered interstellar object (ISO), has prompted a variety of hypotheses to explain its nongravitational acceleration. Given that forthcoming surveys are poised to identify analogs of this enigmatic object, it is prudent to devise alternative approaches to characterization. In this study, we posit X-ray spectroscopy as a surprisingly effective probe of volatile ISO compositions. Heavily ionized metals in the solar wind interact with outgassed neutrals and emit high-energy photons in a process known as charge exchange, and charge-exchange-induced X-rays from comets and planetary bodies have been observed extensively in our solar system. We develop a model to predict the X-ray flux of an ISO based on its chemical inventory and ephemeris. We find that while standard cometary constituents, such as H _2 O, CO _2 , CO, and dust, are best probed via optical or infrared observations, we predict strong X-ray emission generated by charge exchange with extended comae of H _2 and N _2 —species that lack strong infrared fluorescence transitions. We find that XMM-Newton would have been sensitive to charge exchange emission from 1I/‘Oumuamua during the object’s close approach to Earth, and that constraints on composition may have been feasible. We argue for follow-up X-ray observations of newly discovered ISOs with close-in perihelia. Compositional constraints on the general ISO population could reconcile the apparently self-conflicting nature of 1I/‘Oumuamua and provide insight into the earliest stages of planet formation in extrasolar systems.

The extraordinary 2021 September–October outburst of Centaur 29P/Schwassmann–Wachmann 1 afforded an opportunity to test the composition of primitive Kuiper disk material at high sensitivity. We conducted nearly simultaneous multiwavelength spectroscopic observations of 29P/Schwassmann–Wachmann 1 using iSHELL at the NASA Infrared Telescope Facility (IRTF) and nFLASH at the Atacama Pathfinder EXperiment (APEX) on 2021 October 6, with follow-up APEX/nFLASH observations on 2021 October 7 and 2022 April 3. This coordinated campaign between near-infrared and radio wavelengths enabled us to sample molecular emission from a wealth of coma molecules and to perform measurements that cannot be accomplished at either wavelength alone. We securely detected CO emission on all dates with both facilities, including velocity-resolved spectra of the CO ( J = 2–1) transition with APEX/nFLASH and multiple CO ( v = 1–0) rovibrational transitions with IRTF/iSHELL. We report rotational temperatures, coma kinematics, and production rates for CO and stringent (3 σ ) upper limits on abundance ratios relative to CO for CH _4 , C _2 H _6 , CH _3 OH, H _2 CO, CS, and OCS. Our upper limits for CS/CO and OCS/CO represent their first values in the literature for this Centaur. Upper limits for CH _4 , C _2 H _6 , CH _3 OH, and H _2 CO are the most stringent reported to date, and are most similar to values found in ultra CO-rich Oort cloud comet C/2016 R2 (PanSTARRS), which may have implications for how ices are preserved in cometary nuclei. We demonstrate the superb synergy of coordinated radio and near-infrared measurements, and advocate for future small-body studies that jointly leverage the capabilities of each wavelength.

We conducted polarimetric observations of comet 21P/Giacobini–Zinner in the optical wavelength region using the polarimetric imager PICO equipped with the 50 cm telescope for Public Outreach at the Mitaka Campus of the National Astronomical Observatory of Japan on UT 2018 September 16, at a solar phase angle of 77° for the comet. We used Gunn’s i ′-band filter to cover the wavelength region where sunlight reflected by dust grains dominates cometary spectra. The intensity map of comet 21P/Giacobini–Zinner showed an elongated coma structure along the east–west direction. The linear polarization degree map was almost uniform and showed no evidence of jet or arc structures in the inner coma. The linear polarization degree was 22% in the coma, which is consistent with other optical polarization observations of 21P/Giacobini–Zinner for this and previous apparitions reported in the literature. The measured polarization angles (179°) were nearly perpendicular to the position angle of the scattering plane of 271°. There is no evidence of significant changes in the dust properties (composition, porosity, and size distribution) in the comet from its 1985 to 2018 apparitions. The spectral gradient of the linear polarization degree for the comet was nearly flat in the wavelength range of ∼510–830 nm at a solar phase angle of ∼77° during the 2018 apparition.

We present a comprehensive analysis of the chemical composition of the Jupiter-family comet and potential spacecraft target 46P/Wirtanen, in the near-IR wavelength range. We used iSHELL at the NASA Infrared Telescope Facility to observe the comet on 11 pre-, near-, and postperihelion dates in 2018 December and 2019 January and February during its historic apparition. We report rotational temperatures, production rates, and mixing ratios with respect to H _2 O and C _2 H _6 or 3 σ upper limits of the primary volatiles H _2 O, HCN, CH _4 , C _2 H _6 , CH _3 OH, H _2 CO, NH _3 , CO, C _2 H _2 , and HC _3 N. We also discuss the spatial outgassing of the primary volatiles, to understand their sources and the spatial associations between them. The spatial profiles of H _2 O in 46P/Wirtanen suggest the presence of extended H _2 O outgassing sources in the coma, similar to the EPOXI target comet 103P/Hartley 2. 46P/Wirtanen is among the few known hyperactive comets, and we note that its composition and outgassing behavior are similar to those of other hyperactive comets in many ways. We note that the analyzed parent volatiles showed different variations (relative mixing ratios) during the apparition. We compared the chemical composition of 46P/Wirtanen with the mean abundances in Jupiter-family comets and the comet population as measured with ground-based near-IR facilities to date. The molecular abundances in 46P/Wirtanen suggest that although they were changing, the variations were small compared to the range in the comet population, with CH _3 OH showing notably more variation as compared to the other molecules.

The release of volatiles from comets is usually from direct sublimation of ices on the nucleus, but for very or hyperactive comets other sources have to be considered to account for the total production rates. In this work, we present new near-IR (NIR) imaging and spectroscopic observations of 46P/Wirtanen taken during its close approach to Earth on 2018 December 19 with the MMIRS instrument at the MMT Observatory to search for signatures of icy or ice-rich grains in its inner coma that might explain its previously reported excess water production. The morphology of the images does not suggest any change in grain properties within the field of view, and the NIR spectra do not show the characteristic absorption features of water ice. Using a new Markov Chain Monte Carlo–based implementation of the spectral modeling approach of Protopapa et al., we estimate the areal water ice fraction of the coma to be

Short-period comet 108P/Ciffreo is known for its peculiar double morphology, in which the nucleus is accompanied by a comoving, detached, diffuse “blob.” We report new observations of 108P/Ciffreo taken with the Hubble Space Telescope and the Nordic Optical Telescope and use them to determine the cause of this unusual morphology. The separation and the longevity of the blob across several orbits together rule out the possibility of a single, slow-moving secondary object near the primary nucleus. We use a model of coma particle dynamics under the action of solar gravity and radiation pressure to show that the blob is an artifact of the turnaround of particles ejected sunward and repelled by sunlight. Numerical experiments limit the range of directions which can reproduce the morphology and explain why the comoving blob appearance is rare.

Jupiter-family comet (JFC) P/2021 HS (PANSTARRS) only exhibits a coma within a few weeks of its perihelion passage at 0.8 au, which is atypical for a comet. Here we present an investigation into the underlying cause using serendipitous survey detections and targeted observations. We find that the detection of the activity is caused by an extremely faint coma being enhanced by the forward scattering effect owing to the comet reaching a phase angle of ∼140°. The coma morphology is consistent with sustained, sublimation-driven activity produced by a small active area, ∼700 m ^2 , one of the smallest values ever measured on a comet. The phase function of the nucleus shows a phase coefficient of 0.035 ± 0.002 mag deg ^−1 , implying an absolute magnitude of H = 18.31 ± 0.04 and a phase slope of G = − 0.13, with color consistent with typical JFC nuclei. Thermal observations suggest a nucleus diameter of 0.6–1.1 km, implying an optical albedo of 0.04–0.23, which is higher than typical cometary nuclei. An unsuccessful search for dust trail and meteor activity confirms minimal dust deposit along the orbit, totaling ≲10 ^8 kg. As P/2021 HS is dynamically unstable, similar to typical JFCs, we speculate that it has an origin in the trans-Neptunian region and that its extreme depletion of volatiles is caused by a large number of previous passages to the inner solar system. The dramatic discovery of the cometary nature of P/2021 HS highlights the challenges of detecting comets with extremely low activity levels. Observations at high phase angle, where forward scattering is pronounced, will help identify such comets.

We report statistically significant detections of nonradial, nongravitational accelerations based on astrometric data in the photometrically inactive objects 1998 KY _26 , 2005 VL _1 , 2016 NJ _33 , 2010 VL _65 , 2016 RH _120 , and 2010 RF _12 . The magnitudes of the nongravitational accelerations are greater than those typically induced by the Yarkovsky effect, and there is no radiation-based, nonradial effect that can be so large. Therefore, we hypothesize that the accelerations are driven by outgassing and calculate implied H _2 O production rates for each object. We attempt to reconcile outgassing-induced acceleration with the lack of visible comae or photometric activity via the absence of surface dust and low levels of gas production. Although these objects are small, and some are rapidly rotating, the surface cohesive forces are stronger than the rotational forces, and rapid rotation alone cannot explain the lack of surface debris. It is possible that surface dust was removed previously, perhaps via outgassing activity that increased the rotation rates to their present-day value. We calculate dust production rates of order ∼10 ^−4 g s ^−1 in each object, assuming that the nuclei are bare, within the upper limits of dust production from a sample stacked image of 1998 KY _26 of ${\dot{M}}_{\mathrm{Dust}}\lt 0.2$ g s ^−1 . This production corresponds to brightness variations of order ∼0.0025%, which are undetectable in extant photometric data. We assess the future observability of each of these targets and find that the orbit of 1998 KY _26 —which is also the target of the extended Hayabusa2 mission—exhibits favorable viewing geometry before 2025.

We measured the chemical composition of comet C/2021 A1 (Leonard) using the long-slit echelle grating spectrograph iSHELL/IRTF on 2021 December 20 and on 2022 January 8 and 9. We sampled 11 primary volatiles (H _2 O, HCN, NH _3 , CO, C _2 H _2 , C _2 H _6 , CH _4 , CH _3 OH, H _2 CO, OCS, and HCl) and three product species (CN, NH _2 , and OH) and retrieved their molecular abundances, which can serve as important cosmogonic indicators. The abundance ratios, relative to water, of almost all trace volatiles appear to be depleted relative to reference values, with methanol abundance among the lowest observed in a comet. The observed stronger depletion of CH _3 OH, relative to CO, CH _4 , and C _2 H _6 , could be evidence of an interstellar medium (ISM) chemistry signature in comet/Leonard ices. Both the detection of HCl and the detection of OCS support the idea of interstellar origin for comet/Leonard ices, since they are preferentially formed via solid-phase interstellar chemistry and are then found depleted in dense molecular clouds and protoplanetary disks, suggesting that their abundances in comets might retain a signature from the ISM era. The comet also revealed a complex outgassing pattern, with volatiles largely shifted toward the sunward direction, relative to the dust profiles that appeared centered on the nucleus-centric position. Here we present emission profiles measured along the Sun–comet line for brightest lines of H _2 O, HCN, C _2 H _6 , and CO, and we show that they follow the release of water in similar fashion, interpreting this as indication of a not strict relationship between polar and apolar ices.

Using the gas drag by sublimating cometary surface ices for the acceleration of dust particles and deceleration by the gravity field of the nucleus combined with basic laws of mechanics, the sizes, velocities, and number densities of escaping particles are calculated and evaluated with respect to the hazard assessment of comet–spacecraft flybys and encounters. We find good agreement between our analytical method and the more elaborate and precise DSMC calculations, but, being simpler, our method can more easily be used to explore a wide range of cometary conditions and can be more easily scaled to specific comets with different nucleus sizes, masses, and gravity potentials and various gas and dust production rates. Our analytical method is applied to outbursts expanding into a cone of ∼60°, where the gas density falls off with height from the surface rather than radial distance from the center of a uniformly outgassing nucleus. In this scenario, larger dust particles can be ejected and attain ballistic trajectories, go into orbit, or escape from the nucleus, thus being potentially more hazardous to a spacecraft. Sample calculations are carried out for potential dust outbursts for the highly active Centaur/Comet 29P/Schwassmann-Wachmann 1 for various assumed active areas and dust particle size distributions. Particle velocity ranges for ballistic trajectories, orbiting particles, and particles escaping into the coma are presented. These calculations are used to estimate the coma particle number densities during outbursts to get an assessment of the hazards and required mitigation for a flyby or orbiting space mission.

Observations of the inner coma of Comet 19P/Borrelly with the camera on the Deep Space 1 spacecraft revealed several highly collimated dust jets emanating from the nucleus. The observed jets can be produced by acceleration of evolved gas from a subsurface cavity through a narrow orifice to the surface. As long as the cavity is larger than the orifice, the pressure in the cavity will be greater than the ambient pressure in the coma and the flow from the geyser will be supersonic. The gas flow becomes collimated as the sound speed is approached and dust entrainment in the gas flow creates the observed jets. Outside the cavity, the expanding gas loses its collimated character, but the density drops rapidly decoupling the dust and gas, allowing the dust to continue in a collimated beam. The hypothesis proposed here can explain the jets seen in the inner coma of Comet 1P/Halley as well, and may be a primary mechanism for cometary activity. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]