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The Disintegration of Comet 249P/LINEAR

ATel #13890; Zhong-Yi Lin (IANCU), Wing-Huen Ip (IANCU), Michael S. P. Kelley (U. Maryland), Chi-Sheng Lin (IANCU), Hsiang-Yao Hsiao (IANCU), Wei-Jir Hou(IANCU), Hung-Chin Lin(IANCU)
on 23 Jul 2020; 16:03 UT
Distributed as an Instant Email Notice Comets
Credential Certification: Zhong-Yi Lin (zylin@astro.ncu.edu.tw)

Subjects: Optical, Comet

Short period comet 249P/LINEAR might have disintegrated in mid July, 2020, about three weeks after perihelion passage. Comet 249P passed its perihelion on June 29, 2020 and showed a clear condensation (nucleus) on July 5, 2020 as reported by M. Jager. http://www.aerith.net/comet/catalog/0249P/2020-pictures.html However, the images on July 21 and 22 taken by the Lulin 40 cm telescope (SLT) showed that there was no point source at the center according to the ephemeris predicted by MPEC while a tail structure remained. Additionally, the brightness was about 15 magnitude which is several magnitudes fainter than the expected value (S. Yoshida). Unlike comet C/2019 Y4 (ATLAS) (Lin et al. 2020, Atel#13629), no peculiar feature was observed (no fragments), indicating that the nucleus might have possibly completely disintegrated. The SLT images of comet 249P/LINEAR can be found at http://www.astro.ncu.edu.tw/people/zylin/249P.html (North is up, and east is left. FOV is 9.6 x 12.6 arcmin. ) Follow-up observations of comet 249P/LINEAR, both imaging and spectroscopy, are highly recommended to investigate the cause of this cometary splitting event. This work is based on observations made with 40cm telescope at Lulin observatory (MPC code: D35), operated by Institute of Astronomy, NCU, Taiwan.

249P/LINEAR