Where is the Water Ice on Cometary Nuclei?

Details Where is the Water Ice on Cometary Nuclei? Where is the Water Ice on Cometary Nuclei?

Oct 2007

adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-data_query?bibcode=2007dps....39.4306k&link_type=abstract

American Astronomical Society, DPS meeting #39, #43.06; Bulletin of the American Astronomical Society, Vol. 39, p.498

Astronomy and Astrophysics

Astronomy

Scientific paper

The flybys of now four cometary nuclei revealed bodies with seemingly diverse topography and morphology. All cometary nuclei were active producing dust jets during the flybys but areas of activity could not be identified. Only the Deep Impact spectrometer observations revealed 3 small patches from which a signature of water ice crystals was discovered. The amount of crystalline water ice detected on the surface was too small to be responsible for the observed cometary activity level (Sunshine et al. 2006). Farnham et al. (Icarus 2007) suggested that the ice was formed by re-condensation of jet activity out of the interior of the nucleus.
We provide arguments that the icy patches indicate spots of activity. The water ice that gives rise to the activity by sublimation is located very near the surface hardly covered by a thin layer of inert refractories. The low conductivity inferred from the temperature map produced from Deep Impact observations (Groussin et al., 2006) and from Hale-Bopp measurements (Kührt, 2002) means that the thermal skin depth is very small. For such low conductivity the erosion rate due to activity near perihelion is faster than the heat penetration and therefore the volatiles can be found very near the surface. Considering in addition the high porosity of the nucleus material and its low tensile strength makes sampling the pristine material relatively easy.

Affiliated with

Also associated with

No associations

Rating

Where is the Water Ice on Cometary Nuclei? does not yet have a rating. At this time, there are no reviews or comments for this scientific paper.

If you have personal experience with Where is the Water Ice on Cometary Nuclei?, we encourage you to share that experience with our LandOfFree.com community. Your opinion is very important and Where is the Water Ice on Cometary Nuclei? will most certainly appreciate the feedback.

Rate now

Comments { 0 }

Profile ID: LFWR-SCP-O-1066635