An Investigation of Comet Hale-Bopp at 21.6 and 27.2 AU from the Sun

Details An Investigation of Comet Hale-Bopp at 21.6 and 27.2 AU from the Sun An Investigation of Comet Hale-Bopp at 21.6 and 27.2 AU from the Sun

May 2010

adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-data_query?bibcode=2010aas...21640902k&link_type=abstract

American Astronomical Society, AAS Meeting #216, #409.02; Bulletin of the American Astronomical Society, Vol. 41, p.816

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Scientific paper

Comet Hale-Bopp offered us an unprecedented opportunity to observe a large, bright comet in great detail. Since its 1997 perihelion, continued observations have let us observe how its activity has changed over time. Here we present 2005 and 2008 Spitzer Space Telescope observations of Hale-Bopp that show coma and tail, which is uncommon given its heliocentric distance -- 21.6 AU in 2005 and 27.2 AU in 2008. We have images at 24 µm (obtained with MIPS, the Multiband Imaging Photometer for Spitzer) that show thermal emission from the dust, and we are using dynamical models [1,2] to explain the dust morphology and constrain the dust's properties. Preliminary work suggests that the motion of the dust cannot be solely due to the effects of gravity and radiation pressure, which generally are the dominant forces. We investigate the role of other possible driving forces such as the so-called rocket force [3]. Our science goals are to: understand the comet's activity mechanism, constrain the age of the dust, find the size of the grains, and compare properties of the dust we see now to those of the dust seen in the 1990s. Our overarching goal is to use Hale-Bopp and other distant, active comets to understand cometary activity and the structure of cometary nuclei, which is related to icy planetesimal formation and evolution. We acknowledge support from the NSF, NASA and the Spitzer Science Center for this work. References: [1] Kelley, M.S., et al. 2008, Icarus 193, 572, [2] Lisse, C.M., et al. 1998, ApJ 496, 971, [3] Reach, W.T., et al. 2009, Icarus 203, 571.

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