THE spectacular break-up of a comet鈥檚 core may have caused the sudden increase in its brightness which led to it unexpectedly becoming visible to the naked eye in September. The faint periodic comet known to astronomers as 73P/Schwassmann-Wachmann 3, is now 1600 times as bright as before.
On the night of 12 December, infrared telescopes at the European Southern Observatory in Chile detected four bright spots in the comet鈥檚 coma 鈥� the luminous cloud surrounding its solid nucleus. This suggests that the flare-up may have been caused by the splitting of the comet鈥檚 nucleus, say Hermann B枚hnhardt of the University of Munich and Hans Ulrich K盲ufl of the ESO.
