Recovery and Characterization of the NASA EPOXI Mission Target Comet 85P/Boethin

Details Recovery and Characterization of the NASA EPOXI Mission Target Comet 85P/Boethin Recovery and Characterization of the NASA EPOXI Mission Target Comet 85P/Boethin

Aug 2007

adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-data_query?bibcode=2007sptz.prop..460l&link_type=abstract

Spitzer Proposal ID #460

Mathematics

Probability

Scientific paper

In July 2007 NASA selected the EPOXI mission for flight operations. This mission utilizes the Deep Impact flyby spacecraft, which survived encounter with comet 9P/Tempel unscathed after returning, in conjunction with Spitzer, a wealth of data on the primordial makeup of comets. EPOXI will rendezvous with comet 85P/Boethin (Boethin) and obtain comparable observations. However, little is known about it, and nothing definitive is known about its nucleus, not its size, rotation rate, albedo, or thermal inertia. Mission success depends critically on the ability of the EPOXI spacecraft to navigate to the comet. Despite robust targeting algorithms, large uncertainties in size, shape, albedo distribution, and rotational state significantly degrade the probability that the spacecraft will view a sunlit portion of the surface. Another critical point is the fact that the comet has not been seen in over 20 years due to unfavorable observing geometry, despite intense visible-wavelength searches by the EPOXI team over the last two years using 8-meter class telescopes (including Subaru and VLT in June-July 2007). Fortunately, the mid-1980s orbit determination is good enough to establish a long, but narrow region along the comet's orbital path where the nucleus is located. We propose here to use Spitzer?s MIPS 24 µm imager to recover and characterize comet 85P/Boethin. This imager is highly sensitive to cold solar system objects, and with the stable hardware and large field of view it is actually easier to recover this comet in the mid-infrared than it is in the visible. The final decision to fly to Boethin must be made no later than 2007 Oct 1, to allow proper EPOXI trajectory corrections to be made. Our proposal calls for recovery of comet Boethin during the MIPS 44 campaign, Sept 15 - 20, 2007. The recovery involves a moving-cluster mode MIPS 24µm map of a 1-degree long strip of the sky at 24 µm observed over 2 days utilizing 15.2 hrs of telescope time.

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