[BAA Comets] The enigma of Comet 29P/Schwassmann-Wachmann 1

[Richard Miles]

Back in 2007, after the dramatic outburst of Comet 17P/Holmes, I became 
convinced that liquids trapped beneath a crust on the nucleus underlie that 
comet's bizarre behaviour. Shortly after, the then Comet Section director, 
Jonathan Shanklin pointed out to me that professional astronomers had not 
acknowledged the presence of liquids in comets, and more especially liquid 
water, and so I should expect some opposition to this idea.

Some 8 years on, I have finally managed to accumulate enough evidence to 
show, amongst other things, that liquids underlie the outbursts of Comet 
29P/Schwassmann-Wachmann 1 (and some other comets) and that several 
cryovolcanoes exist on its nucleus, which rotates once every 57 days. These 
findings have been made possible thanks to the tens of thousands of 
observations reported to the Minor Planet Center since 2002 by hundreds of 
amateur astronomers worldwide, for which I am most grateful. Comet 29P/SW-1 
looks to be a most strange body and I encourage observers to keep up a close 
watch on the comet when it reappears from conjunction with the Sun next 
February.


As of today, 'uncorrected proofs' of two papers on Comet 29P became 
available online via the journal, Icarus. They are:

"Anatomy of outbursts and quiescent activity of comet 
29P/Schwassmann-Wachmann"
Authors: Richard Miles, George A. Faillace, Stefano Mottola, Herbert Raab, 
Paul Roche, Jean-François Soulier, Americo Watkins

http://www.sciencedirect.com/…/article/pii/S0019103515005369

and

"Discrete sources of cryovolcanism on the nucleus of comet 
29P/Schwassmann-Wachmann and their origin"
Author: Richard Miles

http://www.sciencedirect.com/…/article/pii/S0019103515005217


One further paper is in the Elsevier/Icarus journal system which includes a 
description of a new source of subsurface heating helping to power outbursts 
of comets in general.


Richard Miles
Director, Asteroids and Remote Planets Section
BAA

P.S. Corrected proofs of the two papers were sent to Elsevier today.