Astronomy and Astrophysics – Astronomy
Scientific paper
Oct 2010
adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-data_query?bibcode=2010dps....42.1404g&link_type=abstract
American Astronomical Society, DPS meeting #42, #14.04; Bulletin of the American Astronomical Society, Vol. 42, p.973
Astronomy and Astrophysics
Astronomy
Scientific paper
A key question in cometary science remains whether the comet nuclei are internally heterogeneous or homogeneous in composition. A single comet could equally well be an aggregate of cometesimals formed locally (leading to a globally homogeneous composition) or an aggregate of cometesimals formed in different regions of the protoplanetary disk (heterogeneous composition). Furthermore, various post-accretion processes can alter the primordial composition of comets. Their surfaces could be chemically altered by prolonged cosmic ray irradiation while they are stored in the Kuiper belt and Oort cloud reservoirs. Their internal structure and composition could be locally modified by heat absorbed at the surface from the sun.
We used a fast 3-dimensional model to explore the effects of non-uniform surface albedo on the internal thermal structure of a cometary nucleus moving on Centaur-like orbits. We find that albedo structures can result in lateral subsurface temperature variations which then support compositional inhomogeneities.
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