Bibcode
Kelley, Michael S.; Harker, D. E.; Woodward, C. E.; Licandro, J.; DIXI Team
Referencia bibliográfica
American Astronomical Society, AAS Meeting #217, #306.06; Bulletin of the American Astronomical Society, Vol. 43, 2011
Fecha de publicación:
1
2011
Número de citas
0
Número de citas referidas
0
Descripción
The Deep Impact spacecraft will fly by comet 103P/Hartley on 4 Nov 2010
with a targeted closest approach distance of 700 km providing better
than 50 m/pixel spatial resolution at the nucleus. In addition, comet
103P will fly by the Earth in October 2010 with a closest approach
distance of 0.12 AU providing better than 100 km/arcsec resolution to
Earth-based observers. Taking advantage of both flybys will help us
connect nucleus geology observed by Deep Impact with coma morphology and
composition, as measured by Deep Impact and Earth-bound telescopes.
Because the Deep Impact spacecraft will only provide limited information
on the composition of the dust coma, ground-based mid-infrared
observations of comet 103P become especially important. Comet dust
composition varies greatly from comet-to-comet. For example, comae range
from the silicate rich comet C/1995 O1 (Hale-Bopp) (Harker et al. 2002,
ApJ, 580) to the more moderate silicate composition of comet C/2002 V1
(NEAT) (Ootsubo et al. 2007, P&SS, 55) and the apparently silicate
poor comet 2P/Encke (Kelley et al. 2006, ApJ, 651). But with our close
encounters with comet 103P in 2010, we have an opportunity to instead
examine the heterogeneity of a single comet nucleus. We present
mid-infrared spectra of comet 103P along with near-infrared spectra from
the Deep Impact spacecraft. We will discuss our effort to determine if
the coma of this comet is homogeneous in terms of its dust grain
properties (size, shape, and composition) and its implication on the
dust of comets as a whole.