Determination of the Rotation Period of Comet 81P/Wild 2

Details Determination of the Rotation Period of Comet 81P/Wild 2 Determination of the Rotation Period of Comet 81P/Wild 2

Oct 2010

adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-data_query?bibcode=2010dps....42.2831m&link_type=abstract

American Astronomical Society, DPS meeting #42, #28.31; Bulletin of the American Astronomical Society, Vol. 42, p.966

Astronomy and Astrophysics

Astronomy

Scientific paper

Until now, the rotation period of comet 81P/Wild 2 was unknown even though the comet was studied in situ by NASA's Stardust mission. We observed the comet near perigee for several nights in March and April 2010 with HB narrowband filters (Farnham et al. 2000; Icarus 147, 180) using the KPNO 2.1m telescope. A rotation period of P=13.5 hours (with an upper limit for the error bars of 0.1 hours) was deduced for the nucleus of comet 81P/Wild 2 based on the repeatability of the CN features in the coma. All other rotation periods can be excluded due to our excellent rotational phase coverage over multiple cycles. This rotation period is consistent with the CN photometry from the March and April data, as well as with the broadband R photometry of the comet taken by us in 2008.
We acknowledge support from a NASA Planetary Astronomy grant.

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