The Activity of Comets

Comets are some of the most unaltered building blocks of planet formation - their properties can give us a window on the Solar System's protoplanetary disc. To understand just how pristine they are, we need to better understand their evolution as they are eroded by sublimation of ices when near the Sun. This observational project will follow the pattern of cometary activity for a large variety of comets, including comets of different types and at different stages of their evolution. The project will make use of observations from large surveys, from telescope archives, and will include the possibility of obtaining new data at major observatories. It will involve developing techniques to go from single observations to making use of large data sets.