Morphology–Composition–Isotopes: Recent Results from Observations

This article presents some recent imaging and spectroscopic observations that led to results which are significant for understanding the properties of comet nuclei. The coma morphology and/or composition were investigated for 12 comets belonging to different dynamical classes. The data analysis showed that the coma morphology of three non-periodic comets is not consistent with the general assumption that dynamically new comets still have a relatively uniform nucleus surface and therefore do not exhibit gas and/or dust jets in their coma. The determination of carbon and nitrogen isotopic ratios revealed the same values for all comets investigated at various heliocentric distances. However, the relative abundance of the rare nitrogen isotope ¹⁵N is about twice as high as in the Earth’s atmosphere. Observations of comets at splitting events and during outbursts led to indications for differences between material from the nucleus surface and the interior. The monitoring of the induced outburst of 9P/Temple revealed that under non-steady state conditions the fast disintegration of species is detectable.