Activity on Internally Inhomogeneous Comet Nuclei Using a 3-D Numerical Model

Details Activity on Internally Inhomogeneous Comet Nuclei Using a 3-D Numerical Model Activity on Internally Inhomogeneous Comet Nuclei Using a 3-D Numerical Model

Oct 2010

adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-data_query?bibcode=2010dps....42.1403r&link_type=abstract

American Astronomical Society, DPS meeting #42, #14.03; Bulletin of the American Astronomical Society, Vol. 42, p.973

Astronomy and Astrophysics

Astronomy

Scientific paper

We present a fully 3-D thermal evolution model for cometary nuclei. The model uses an implicit numerical scheme in spherical coordinates. It includes heat flow, crystallization of amorphous ice, surface and sub-surface sublimation of volatiles, and gas drag on dust particles. The model is applied with the orbital and spin parameters of the Jupiter-family comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko. The calculations are performed with inhomogeneous asymmetric initial configurations.
The initial composition is amorphous water ice and dust, in a "layered-pile" configuration, where layers differing in ice/dust ratio and thermal properties extend over a fraction of the surface area and about 10 meters in depth and may overlap. Four such layers are studied: a) Compact dust, b) Porous dust, c) Compact ice-rich with dust, and d) Fluffy ice-rich with dust.
We analyze the effect of individual layers, as well as the combined effect of many layers, randomly distributed. We found that internal inhomogeneities affect both the surface temperature and the activity pattern of the comet. In particular, they may lead to outbursts at large heliocentric distances and to activity on the night-side of the nucleus. The rates of ablation, thickness of the dust mantle, and crystalline ice layer depth as functions of longitude and latitude are found to be affected as well.

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