Modeling the Dynamics of Comet Hale-Bopp's Dust at Large Heliocentric Distances

Details Modeling the Dynamics of Comet Hale-Bopp's Dust at Large Heliocentric Distances Modeling the Dynamics of Comet Hale-Bopp's Dust at Large Heliocentric Distances

Oct 2010

adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-data_query?bibcode=2010dps....42.2830k&link_type=abstract

American Astronomical Society, DPS meeting #42, #28.30; Bulletin of the American Astronomical Society, Vol. 42, p.965

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Scientific paper

Comet Hale-Bopp has provided an unprecedented opportunity to observe a bright comet over a wide range of heliocentric distances. We present here Spitzer Space Telescope observations of Hale-Bopp from 2005 and 2008 that show a distinct coma and tail, which is uncommon given its heliocentric distance -- 21.6 AU and 27.2 AU, respectively. These 24 um images (obtained with MIPS, the Multiband Imaging Photometer for Spitzer) show thermal emission from the dust, and are being studied using dynamical models [1, 2] to explain the dust morphology and constrain the dust's properties. Preliminary work suggests that the motion of the dust cannot be solely due to the effects of gravity and radiation pressure. We investigate the role of other possible driving forces, including the so-called rocket force [3]. Our initial analysis also shows that: (1) there is no trail lying along the orbit plane, as Spitzer saw for many other comets [4]; (2) the position angle of the tail changed by about 50º between 2005 and 2008; (3) the faintness and shape of the tail in 2008 compared to 2005 cannot solely be due to the change in observing geometry. These points suggest that even though Hale-Bopp is far from the Sun its tail is made of relatively recently-released grains. Our science goals are to understand the comet's activity mechanism, constrain the age of the dust, find the size of the grains, and compare properties of the dust seen now to those of the dust seen in the 1990s. We acknowledge support from the NSF, NASA and the Spitzer Science Center for this work. References: [1] Kelley, M.S., et al.  2008, Icarus 193, 572, [2] Lisse, C.M., et al. 1998, ApJ 496, 971, [3] Reach, W.T., et al. 2009, Icarus 203, 571, [4] Reach, W.T., et al. 2007, Icarus 191, 298.

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