The Return of Activity in Comet 133P/Elst-Pizarro

Astronomy and Astrophysics – Astronomy

Scientific paper

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Scientific paper

Comet 133P/Elst-Pizarro, the first-known main-belt comet, has recently been observed (as of June 2007) to have resumed comet-like dust emission (Jewitt et al., 2007, IAUC 8847), as predicted by Hsieh et al. (2004, AJ 127, 2997). We present the results of an optical monitoring campaign confirming that 133P has been inactive in the five years since it was last observed to be active in 2002. We also present observations of the now-active comet (which displays a long, thin dust trail and minimal coma, as it did during both previous active episodes in 1996 and 2002) using the University of Hawaii 2.2-meter telescope on Mauna Kea, the European Southern Observatory's 3.58-meter New Technology Telescope (NTT) at La Silla, Chile, and the SMARTS 1.3-meter telescope at Cerro Tololo, Chile. In addition to chronicling the evolution of 133P's dust trail during the current outburst, we also present a multicolor (VRI) rotational lightcurve analysis of the nucleus to search for surface inhomogeneities.

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