9 papers
High water D/H ratio of the interstellar object 3I/ATLAS is consistent with a low-metallicity origin
Kenji Furuya, Martin Cordiner, Dominique Bockelée-Morvan +5
Recent JWST observations have revealed unusually high C/C ratios in carbon-bearing molecules of the interstellar object 3I/ATLAS, consistent with formation in a lower…
JWST Spatial-Spectral Mapping of Green Comet C/2022 E3 (ZTF)
Stefanie N. Milam, Nathan X. Roth, Geronimo L. Villanueva +9
We report a survey of molecular emission from cometary volatiles using the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) toward Oort cloud comet C/2022 E3 (ZTF) carried out on UT 2023 February…
A JWST Study of Stardust. I. Infrared Spectroscopy of Comet 81P/Wild 2 and Overall Composition
Nathan X. Roth, Stefanie N. Milam, Diane H. Wooden +11
We report observations of comet 81P/Wild 2, target of the Stardust sample return mission, on UT 2023 March 20 and 24 at a heliocentric distance () of 1.85 au using the NIRSpec…
JWST and Gemini Observations of the Active Centaur 450P/LONEOS: Nucleus and Coma Characterizations
Charles A. Schambeau, Michael S. P. Kelley, Maria Womack +16
Between 2019 and 2024, we used the Gemini-N and JWST observatories to conduct a detailed case study of the active Centaur 450P/LONEOS, whose orbit was significantly altered by a cl…
JWST reveals anomalously enhanced methane outgassing from below Chiron's water ice and carbon dioxide bearing surface
Ian Wong, Silvia Protopapa, Aurélie Guilbert-Lepoutre +7
Centaurs are inward-scattered Kuiper belt objects, with some exhibiting comet-like activity. The physical mechanisms powering this activity remain poorly understood, with carbon mo…
Isotopic Evidence for a Cold and Distant Origin of the Interstellar Object 3I/ATLAS
Martin Cordiner, Nathan X. Roth, Marco Micheli +16
Interstellar objects provide the only directly observable samples of icy planetesimals formed around other stars, and can therefore provide insight into the diversity of physical a…