C/2019 J2 (Palomar)
C/2019 J2 (Palomar) was a non-periodic comet that was discovered from the Palomar Observatory in April 2019. The object was reported by Quanzhi Ye as a comet on 9 May 2019 after detecting a fan-shaped tail about 10–15 arcseconds in length.
Disintegration
On 24 May 2019, the comet began to disintegrate at a distance of 1.9 AU (280 million km) from the Sun, after experiencing a strong outburst nearly 56 days before reaching perihelion. Further observations by the Zwicky Transient Facility between 6 and 9 July 2019 have shown that the comet lost its central condensation, indicating that its nucleus were completely destroyed. It is likely believed that strong outgassing have led to rotational disruption of its roughly 0.4 km (0.25 mi) nucleus, causing it to fully disintegrate a month after its initial outburst in May. A similar event also occurred to 2I/Borisov a few months later.
References
External links
- C/2019 J2 at the JPL Small-Body Database