29p 20211105 drankin

During the course of our survey operations we run into several thousands of objects each night. Last night comet 29P/Schwassmann–Wachmann was in one of our survey fields and this is quite an extraordinary comet. Over the past month, 29P has undergone several increases in brightness (or outbursts), which are characterized by the release of large amounts of dust. The released dust grains reflect the sunlight and hence we see an increase in brightness and on occasions, the dust forms interesting structures around the nucleus like in the present image.
Comet 29P is considered by many astronomers to be the strangest comet known. This object has a continuously present dust coma superimposed with explosive outbursts several times a year, is extremely rich in carbon monoxide and occupies a type of orbit that is shared with very few objects.
There are several hypothesis to explain the erratic behavior of 29P -an amorphous-to-crystalline phase change of water-ice, HCN polymerization, cryovolcanism or meteoroid impacts to name a few- but to this day the cause of activity of 29P remains unknown.