17P/Holmes: Contrast between before and after the 2007 outburst

A Jupiter-family comet, 17P/Holmes, underwent an outburst on 2007 October 23. Since there has been no more dramatic comet outburst than the 17P/Holmes event in the history of modern astronomical observations, active observations were made soon after the outburst. However, little is known about the activity before the outburst because of the accidental event. In addition, since the nucleus has been veiled by the thick dust cloud by the 2007 outburst, the physical status of the nucleus was unknown. In this presentation, we investigated the contrast between before and after the outburst through the imaging observations in both optical and mid-infrared wavelengths. We thus analyzed data taken by Akari infrared telescope, Subaru 8-m telescope, University of Hawaii 2.2-m telescope and Nishi-Harima Astronomical Observatory 2-m Nayuta telescope. As the result, we found that the nucleus was significantly activated through the outburst. The surface fractional active area was 0.3% in the pre-outburst data while 10% in the past-outburst data. We expect that 17P/Holmes shows strenuous activity in the next return in 2013-2014.