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Home » Note, Paper: 2D Receding Treatment

Note, Paper: 2D Receding Treatment

The 1 November Planetary and Space Science (vol. 267) is up:

Garcia, R. S. Fernández-Lajús, E. Di Sisto, R. P. et al.  Comet 12P/Pons-Brooks: Dust properties  Article 106181  .2025.106181

Comet activity is a puzzle we still haven’t solved. Yes, a comet nucleus warms up as it approaches the Sun. Yes, there are constituents that then sublimate to gas, and yes, this gas also frees dust as it escapes. But the details of that (there’s more than one volatile, multiple grades of dust, and a three-dimensionality to the nucleus and its heat transfer, etc.) are still open, even after the Rosetta mission. Every additional comet then looks like another puzzle piece.

Well, here’s Comet Pons-Brooks. Garcia et al. add to our body of work, on the body of comet apparitions. I this case, they do remote sensing as best they can while Pons-Brooks is still close and warm, but receding.

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