The break-up of periodic comet Schwassmann-Wachmann 3: image documents from La Silla telescopes.

Abstract

The splitting of SW3 in 1995 was an other example of how brittle cometary nuclei are. Unlike in most previous events, however, the break-up of SW3 is well documented by high-quality ground-based observations. SW3 represents an excellent candidate for a comprehensive analysis of cometary fragmentation, which could lead to a better understanding of the the disintegration processes involved in the evolution of comets