The break-up of periodic comet Schwassmann-Wachmann 3: image documents from La Silla telescopes.

The splitting of SW3 in 1995 was an other example of how brittle cometary nuclei are. Unlike in most previous events, however, the break-up of SW3 is well documented by high-quality ground-based observations. SW3 represents an excellent candidate for a comprehensive analysis of cometary fragmentation, which could lead to a better understanding of the the disintegration processes involved in the evolution of comets.