COBS News archive

New Comet C/2020 K3 (Leonard)
May 26, 2020
CBET 4782 & MPEC 2020-K159, issued on 2020, May 25, announce the discovery of a comet (magnitude ~18) by G. J. Leonard on images taken on May 22 UT with the Catalina Sky Survey's 0.68-m Schmidt reflector. The new comet has been designated C/2020 K3 (Leonard).

New Comet P/2019 LM4 (Palomar)
May 17, 2020
CBET 4775 & MPEC 2020-J68, issued on 2020, May 14, announce that an apparently asteroidal object discovered on images taken at Palomar on 2019 June 4 and 7 with the 1.2-m f/2.4 Schmidt telescope (and given the minor-planet designation 2019 LM_4 when published on MPS 1001527, along with observations made elsewhere on June 8) has been re-discovered showing cometary appearance at two other observatories. The new comet has been designated P/2019 LM4 (Palomar).

New comet discovered by solar observatory
May 14, 2020
In late May and early June, Earthlings may be able to glimpse Comet SWAN. The comet is currently faintly visible to the unaided eye in the Southern Hemisphere just before sunrise. The new comet was first spotted in April 2020, by an amateur astronomer named Michael Mattiazzo using data from the SOHO satellite.

New Comet C/2020 J1 (SONEAR)
May 08, 2020
CBET 4769 & MPEC 2020-J37, issued on 2020, May 04, announce the discovery of a comet (magnitude ~17) on images taken with a 0.28-m f/2.2 astrograph of the "Southern Observatory for Near Earth Research" (SONEAR) at Oliveira, Brazil, on May 1 . The new comet has been designated C/2020 J1 (SONEAR).

New Comet C/2020 H6 (ATLAS)
May 08, 2020
CBET 4768 & MPEC 2020-J23, issued on 2020, May 03, announce the discovery of a comet (magnitude ~18.5) on individual images from taken on Apr. 22 UT with a 0.5-m f/2 Schmidt reflector at Haleakala, Hawaii, in the course of the "Asteroid Terrestrial-Impact Last Alert System" (ATLAS) search program. The new comet has been designated C/2020 H6 (ATLAS).

New Comet C/2020 H2 (Pruyne)
April 29, 2020
CBET 4761 & MPEC 2020-H220, issued on 2020, April 28, announce the discovery of a comet (magnitude ~16.5) by Theodore A. Pruyne on four 30-s CCD exposures taken with the Catalina Sky Survey's 0.68-m Schmidt telescope. The new comet has been designated C/2020 H2 (PRUYNE).

Hubble captures breakup of comet ATLAS
April 29, 2020
The NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope has provided astronomers with the sharpest view yet of the breakup of Comet C/2019 Y4 (ATLAS). The telescope resolved roughly 30 fragments of the fragile comet on April 20 and 25 pieces on April 23.

Hubble probes Alien Comet's Chemical makeup
April 22, 2020
Astronomers have uncovered more than 4,000 planets that orbit stars outside our solar system. But they have few details on the planets' chemical makeup and how they were assembled inside a swirling disk of rock and ice encircling their stars. The stars are too far away for us ever to visit them and see the planet-making recipe close-up. Now, a sample from a distant star system has landed in our solar system's back yard. Comet Borisov, the first vagabond comet ever to enter our solar system, offers chemical clues to the composition of an object born around another star. Comets are made of gas, ice, and dust that are part of a planet's building blocks. Borisov's unusual abundance of carbon monoxide, as gleaned through Hubble ultraviolet spectroscopic observations, is largely unlike comets belonging to our solar system. Researchers say this abundance points to the comet originating from a circumstellar disk around a class of star called a cool red dwarf.

New Comet P/2020 G1 (Pimentel)
April 18, 2020
CBET 4754 & MPEC 2020-H06, issued on 2020, April 17, announce the discovery of a comet (magnitude ~15) by Eduardo Pimentel on CCD images taken by Jacques, Pimentel, and J. Barros with a 0.28-m f/2.2 astrograph of the "Southern Observatory for Near Earth Research" (SONEAR) at Oliveira, Brazil. The new comet has been designated P/2020 G1 (Pimentel).

New Comet C/2020 F8 (SWAN)
April 14, 2020
CBET 4750 & 4752 & MPEC 2020-G94, issued on 2020, April 13, announce the discovery of a comet (total magnitude ~8.5) by M. Mattiazzo in the low-resolution public website hydrogen Lyman-alpha images obtained with the Solar Wind Anisotropies (SWAN) camera on the Solar and Heliospheric Observer (SOHO) spacecraft. The new comet has been designated C/2020 F8 (SWAN).

New Comet C/2020 F5 (MASTER)
April 09, 2020
CBET 4746 & MPEC 2020-G73, issued on 2020, April 08, announce the discovery of a comet (magnitude ~15.8) in images taken with the "Mobile Astronomical System of the Telescope-Robots" (MASTER) auto-detection system (0.40-m f/2.5 reflector) near San Juan, Argentina. Additional pre-discovery observations from Mar. 17.0 UT (mag 15.8-15.9), Mar. 22.0 (mag 15.8), and Mar. 23.0 (mag 15.7-15.8) were found on images taken with the MASTER 0.40-m reflector at the South African Astronomical Observatory (Sutherland). The new comet has been designated C/2020 F5 (MASTER).

Moravian Instruments Camera type keys
April 04, 2020
In order to unify the camera type abbreviation keys of all Moravian instrument models, we had to change some of the currently used camera type keys.

New Comet C/2020 F3 (NEOWISE)
April 04, 2020
CBET 4740 & MPEC 2020-G05, issued on 2020, April 01, announce the discovery of a comet (magnitude ~17) in infrared images obtained with the Near-Earth Object Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer (or NEOWISE; formerly the WISE earth-orbitingsatellite; cf. CBET 4225). The new comet has been designated C/2020 F3 (NEOWISE).

New Comet C/2020 F2 (ATLAS)
April 03, 2020
CBET 4739 & MPEC 2020-G04, issued on 2020, April 01, announce the discovery of a comet by R. Wainscoat on CCD images obtained on Mar. 22.6 UT with the Pan-STARRS1 1.8-m Ritchey-Chretien reflector at Haleakala, which he then noticed (via posting at the Minor Planet Center's NEOCP webpage) was apparently identical with an apparently asteroidal object (magnitude ~19) discovered on CCD images taken the previous night with a 0.5-m f/2 Schmidt reflector at Haleakala, Hawaii, in the course of the "Asteroid Terrestrial-Impact Last Alert System" (ATLAS) search program. The new comet has been designated C/2020 F2 (ATLAS).

Ammonium salts found on Rosetta’s comet
March 14, 2020
Scientists have detected ammonium salts on the surface of Comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko (shown in this image bellow) by analysing data collected by the Visible, Infrared and Thermal Imaging Spectrometer (VIRTIS) on ESA’s Rosetta mission between August 2014 and May 2015.

New Comet C/2020 B3 (Rankin)
February 07, 2020
MPEC 2020-C111, issued on 2020, February 06, announces the discovery of a comet (magnitude ~20) by D. Rankin in the course of the Mt. Lemmon Survey (G96), in images taken on 2020, Jan 29 with a 1.5-m reflector + 10K CCD. The new comet has been designated C/2020 B3 (Rankin).

Rosetta and the Chameleon Comet
February 06, 2020
A grand synthesis of Rosetta data has shown how its target comet repeatedly changed colour dur-ing the two years it was watched by the spacecraft. The chameleon comet's nucleus became progres-sively less red as it made its close pass around the Sun, and then red again as it returned to deep space.

ESA starts definition phase for Comet Interceptor
February 06, 2020
Following an internal assessment of the results of the phase 0 studies, the European Space Agency is moving forward starting the Definition Phase (phase A) for the F-class mission Comet Interceptor.

The salt of the comet
January 22, 2020
Researchers have found an explanation for why very little nitrogen could previously be accounted for in the nebulous covering of comets: the building block for life predominantly occurs in the form of ammonium salts, the occurrence of which could not previously be measured. The salts may be a further indication that comet impacts may have made life on Earth possible in the first place.

Building blocks of life spotted on Rosetta's Comet hint at composition of its birthplace
January 21, 2020
Observations from ESA's Rosetta spacecraft are shedding light on the mysterious make-up of Comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko, revealing a mix of compounds thought to be essential precursors to life – including salts of ammonium and a particular type of hydrocarbons. These new studies suggest the comet gleaned this mate-rial from the presolar cloud where the Solar System formed 4.6 billion years ago.