18 papers
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…
Multi-year Ground-Based Survey Photometry of Active Comet 103P/Hartley 2 and Centaur (2060) Chiron: A Tale of Two Comets in the Pre-LSST Era
Joseph Murtagh, Megan E. Schwamb, Michael S. P. Kelley +22
Comets and Centaurs trace the evolution of trans-Neptunian objects (TNOs) into the inner solar system. Their activity reflects the interplay between volatile sublimation, dust dyna…
A Look at Eight Outbursts of Comet 7P/Pons-Winnecke
Ky Huynh, Michael S. P. Kelley, Jessica M. Sunshine +6
Cometary outbursts may be used as a means to infer the physical processes occurring on cometary nuclei. To that end, we studied eight outbursts of comet 7P/Pons-Winnecke identified…
Coma Physics of an Interstellar Object: JWST Spatial-Spectral Mapping of 3I/ATLAS
Nathan X. Roth, Martin A. Cordiner, Stefanie N. Milam +17
We report a survey of molecular emission from cometary volatiles using the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) toward interstellar object 3I/ATLAS carried out on UT 2025 December 22…
Characterization of the Volatile Properties of 133P/Elst-Pizarro and Other Main-Belt Comets with JWST and Ground-Based Observations
Henry H. Hsieh, John W. Noonan, Michael S. P. Kelley +10
We report results from an analysis of the volatile composition and evolution of main-belt comet (MBC) 133P/Elst-Pizarro using JWST NIRSpec and NIRCam observations and ground-based…
Emerging Diversity Among the Main-Belt Comets: Insights from JWST and Ground-Based Observations of 457P/Lemmon-PANSTARRS
John W. Noonan, Henry H. Hsieh, Michael S. P. Kelley +10
We present JWST NIRSpec and NIRCam observations of 457P/Lemmon-PANSTARRS, a main-belt comet that displayed activity around its 2020 perihelion and that was observed to regain activ…