eprintid: 10157214 rev_number: 7 eprint_status: archive userid: 699 dir: disk0/10/15/72/14 datestamp: 2022-10-12 11:16:45 lastmod: 2022-10-12 11:16:45 status_changed: 2022-10-12 11:16:45 type: article metadata_visibility: show sword_depositor: 699 creators_name: Afghan, Qasim creators_name: Jones, Geraint H creators_name: Price, Oliver creators_name: Coates, Andrew title: Observations of a dust tail gap in comet C/2014 Q1 (PanSTARRS) ispublished: inpress divisions: C06 divisions: F63 divisions: B04 divisions: UCL keywords: Comets, Comet dust, Comet tails, Comet activity note: This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License. The images or other third-party material in this article are included in the Creative Commons license, unless indicated otherwise in the credit line; if the material is not included under the Creative Commons license, users will need to obtain permission from the license holder to reproduce the material. To view a copy of this license, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ abstract: Cometary dust tails display a wide array of structures, most believed to be caused by a variable dust production, size distributions, fragmentation processes, and interactions with the solar wind, e.g. Price et al. (2019). However, not all these structures are fully understood. Here we report the discovery of a curious new dust tail feature, first noted in long period comet C/2014 Q1 (PanSTARRS) (Bolin et al., 2014), where a section of the dust tail was clearly missing. This implies that the comet underwent a dramatic temporary decrease in dust production near perihelion. The gap appeared on 2015 July 14, 8 days after perihelion at 0.318 au, and progressed along the tail, following the expected motion of the dust that should have been present. The gap corresponds to dust ejected between July 5 and July 12, and of 0.01. Possible explanations for this gap are proposed. date: 2022-09-29 date_type: published publisher: Elsevier BV official_url: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ oa_status: green full_text_type: pub language: eng primo: open primo_central: open_green verified: verified_manual elements_id: 1981036 doi: 10.1016/j.icarus.2022.115286 lyricists_name: Afghan, Qasim lyricists_name: Coates, Andrew lyricists_name: Jones, Geraint lyricists_id: QAFGH31 lyricists_id: AJCOA20 lyricists_id: GHJON25 actors_name: Kalinowski, Damian actors_id: DKALI47 actors_role: owner full_text_status: public publication: Icarus article_number: 115286 citation: Afghan, Qasim; Jones, Geraint H; Price, Oliver; Coates, Andrew; (2022) Observations of a dust tail gap in comet C/2014 Q1 (PanSTARRS). Icarus , Article 115286. 10.1016/j.icarus.2022.115286 <https://doi.org/10.1016/j.icarus.2022.115286>. (In press). Green open access document_url: https://discovery-pp.ucl.ac.uk/id/eprint/10157214/1/Afghan_Observations%20of%20a%20dust%20tail%20gap%20in%20comet_Pre-proof.pdf