The Ambient Coma Of Comet Tempel 1: From The Earliest Spacecraft Observations To The Deep Impact Event

Details The Ambient Coma Of Comet Tempel 1: From The Earliest Spacecraft Observations To The Deep Impact Event The Ambient Coma Of Comet Tempel 1: From The Earliest Spacecraft Observations To The Deep Impact Event

Sep 2006

adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-data_query?bibcode=2006dps....38.2805f&link_type=abstract

American Astronomical Society, DPS meeting #38, #28.05; Bulletin of the American Astronomical Society, Vol. 38, p.534

Astronomy and Astrophysics

Astronomy

Scientific paper

On 4 July 2005, Deep Impact encountered comet Tempel 1, executing its historic impact experiment. Before the impact, however, the spacecraft acquired thousands of observations of the comet's coma and nucleus, using a variety of instruments and techniques. The temporal coverage of the comet's coma was unprecedented, with visual observations obtained every four hours for nearly two months before encounter. The earliest images in this temporal sequence were dominated by a featureless asymmetry to the south, similar to what was seen in ground-based observations. As the spacecraft closed on the comet, the improving spatial resolution revealed an increasing number of features, and variations that changed with the 1.7-day rotation period of the nucleus. Near closest approach, the DI continuum observations show numerous radial features, including intricate collimated rays associated with the exposed ice patches on the nucleus and jet material that appears to emanate from unilluminated regions near the visible pole. Stereo pairs of images, produced by the changing perspective of the flyby as well as by combining the flyby and impactor images, provide information about the three dimensional structure of the jets, allowing them to be extrapolated back to their origins on the surface. Narrowband filter images show the gas coma morphology and IR spectrometer scans show asymmetries in the spatial distribution of water and carbon dioxide in the coma.
The variety of data available from the DI mission are unique in that they offer multiple avenues that can be used to investigate the sources of the activity of comet Tempel 1. We will present an overview of the data available and discuss the techniques being utilized in its analysis. We will also present preliminary results and describe the current state and future directions of the study.
This work was supported by a grant from the NASA Discovery Program.

Affiliated with

Also associated with

No associations

Rating

The Ambient Coma Of Comet Tempel 1: From The Earliest Spacecraft Observations To The Deep Impact Event does not yet have a rating. At this time, there are no reviews or comments for this scientific paper.

If you have personal experience with The Ambient Coma Of Comet Tempel 1: From The Earliest Spacecraft Observations To The Deep Impact Event, we encourage you to share that experience with our LandOfFree.com community. Your opinion is very important and The Ambient Coma Of Comet Tempel 1: From The Earliest Spacecraft Observations To The Deep Impact Event will most certainly appreciate the feedback.

Rate now

Comments { 0 }

Profile ID: LFWR-SCP-O-999966