Astronomy and Astrophysics – Astronomy
Scientific paper
Nov 2001
adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-data_query?bibcode=2001dps....33.4604s&link_type=abstract
American Astronomical Society, DPS Meeting #33, #46.04; Bulletin of the American Astronomical Society, Vol. 33, p.1124
Astronomy and Astrophysics
Astronomy
Scientific paper
We present results from Monte Carlo modeling of the dust jets in Comet Hyakutake (1996 B2) based on images obtained at Lowell Observatory on 11 consecutive nights in late March 1996, during the comet's close approach to Earth. Two dust jets, a primary jet along with a much weaker secondary jet, are examined as a function of rotational phase and viewing geometry, with their appearance changing from a nearly face-on view on March 18 to side-on by March 28. Mapping and modeling the position of jets as a function of time provides the dust outflow velocity as a function of distance from the nucleus. While most of the acceleration occurred within 3000 km of the nucleus, the dust continued to slowly accelerate out to a distance of 8000 km, reaching a velocity of 0.46 km/s. We successfully reproduced the coma morphology throughout the interval with a model having two source regions on a nucleus having an obliquity of the pole of 108 deg (RA=13h41m; Dec=-1.1deg) and a sidereal rotation period of 0.2618 day. The primary active region is centered at approximately -66 deg latitude and has a radius of about 56 deg, and therefore covers about 22 source of the secondary jet is at a latitude of -28 deg, has a radius of about 16 deg, and is located at a longitude nearly 180 deg away from the primary source. This solution for the nucleus orientation and source locations explains the strong asymmetry in production rates before and after perihelion in radio observations (Biver et al. 1999; A.J. 118, 1850-1872). This research was supported by NASA.
Schleicher David G.
Woodney Laura M.
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