Other
Scientific paper
Jan 2012
adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-data_query?bibcode=2012sptz.prop80237k&link_type=abstract
Spitzer Proposal ID #80237
Other
Scientific paper
We propose to observe the newly discovered comet C/2011 W3 Lovejoy in February 2012 at 3.6 and 4.5 microns. Lovejoy is a member of the Kreutz group of sungrazing comets and is the first sungrazing comet known to have survived perihelion during the era of modern observations (since 1970). The size of its nucleus is currently unconstrained but is critical for understanding Lovejoy's place in the Kreutz group hierarchy (either as one of the 1600+ known "pygmy" fragments or one of a handful of major fragments of the parent body, which created the rest). Spitzer observations of the nucleus's thermal emission, when combined with planned optical observations (we have an approved HST DDT proposal and plan to obtain concurrent observations from Las Campanas Observatory), would let us definitively measure the size of a Kreutz nucleus for the first time, thereby giving us confidence in estimating sizes of other Kreutz fragments from visible data alone. The observations would also let us constrain the Kreutz nucleus's thermal properties and compare them to other comets that do not suffer such extreme heating. Kreutz comets are known to fragment frequently, and we expect to be sensitive down to fragments ~40 m in radius at 4.5 microns. The imaging of the dust, combined with other visible-wavelength imaging, will let us constrain dust grain sizes (via dynamical [Finson-Probstein] modeling) and grain albedos (vi a photometry). We would also be able to measure the dust production rate and thus constrain fragment lifetimes. These Spitzer observations would be the first infrared observations of a sungrazing comet since Comet Ikeya-Seki in 1965, and the first in the modern infrared era with sensitive, space-based detectors.
Fernandez Yanga
Knight Matthew M.
Lisse Carey
Osip David
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