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Rubin Coadds Still Revealed Comet Tails and NEO Trails
Shallow patches inside stacked images yielded 59 activity detections and 336 near-Earth-object cutouts.
Summary
Shallow patches inside stacked images yielded 59 activity detections and 336 near-Earth-object cutouts.
Researchers found effectively single-visit regions inside Rubin Observatory Early Data Preview 2 coadds, where only one or two visits contributed to the stack. A workflow using predicted positions and image cutouts found 59 activity detections across 32 cometary objects, including previously unreported activity in 2025 NC6 and the first reported pre-perihelion activity of 2008 QZ44. It also recovered 336 near-Earth-object cutouts, 29 with predicted trails longer than 25 pixels. These are preprint results from early data and targeted searches, not a completeness census of the survey.
Why it matters
Shallow patches inside stacked images yielded 59 activity detections and 336 near-Earth-object cutouts.
Limits and context
- Researchers found effectively single-visit regions inside Rubin Observatory Early Data Preview 2 coadds, where only one or two visits contributed to the stack.
- These are preprint results from early data and targeted searches, not a completeness census of the survey.
Key claims
Shallow patches inside stacked images yielded 59 activity detections and 336 near-Earth-object cutouts.
Qualification: Researchers found effectively single-visit regions inside Rubin Observatory Early Data Preview 2 coadds, where only one or two visits contributed to the stack.
Evidence: source-2026-09-28-004
Sources
- arXiv preprint 2609.30361arXiv · primary research
Corrections
No corrections have been recorded for this story.