Known for its explosive personality, comet 29P/Schwassmann–Wachmann is causing quite a stir. A few weaker outbursts have been detected over the past few days as seen in the latest lightcurve (Figure 1).

Figure 1. 29P/Schwassmann-Wachmann comet lightcurve

The outburst of the 29^th of November was detected thanks to imaging by Ben Wooding at St Mary’s School in Bridgend, Wales. Image processing of the latest 1.0-m exposures from Las Cumbres Observatory, Chile, confirmed this new strong outburst. In other words, a further cryo-eruption was triggered.

Figure 2. Top image by Julio Vannini, bottom image by Ben Wooding

What is remarkable is that the lower image in Figure 2 shows a new fan-shaped feature extending to about 3 arcsec from the nucleus, yet this appeared only 2-3 hours after this eruption began. To do this, the leading edge must have travelled at speeds up to about 1.0 km/s projected on the sky. This makes this latest event unusual and suggests that it is gas-driven from a relatively warm source at around 70-90 K.

Moreover, is that the brightening of November 29 was rather short-lived. This is something that might have been missed in the past.

We need URGENT help with observations. While the 2.0-m Faulkes Telescope North is affected by bad weather and nearby volcanic activity, do continue to use the 1.0-m telescopes and the 2.0-m telescope from Faulkes Telescope South. An exposure of 60s will work well.

If any help is needed setting this up, please contact one of the people below:

Helen Usher – helen.usher@open.ac.uk
Cai Stoddard-Jones – Stoddard-JonesIC@cardiff.ac.uk
Richard Miles – rmiles.btee@btinternet.com

all of whom will happily assist!

More information can be found by following this link:

MISSION 29P – Centaur comet observing campaign