Explosion of Comet Holmes

Details Explosion of Comet Holmes Explosion of Comet Holmes

Sep 2009

adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-data_query?bibcode=2009dps....41.2301r&link_type=abstract

American Astronomical Society, DPS meeting #41, #23.01

Mathematics

Logic

Scientific paper

We report on observations and theoretical interpretation of the explosion on comet 17P/Holmes 2007 Oct 23. Observed used the Spitzer mid-infrared spectrograph (5-40 microns), the Spitzer imaging photometer (24 and 70 microns), the Palomar Observatory 60-inch telescope, and frequent optical images from the Holloway comet observatory. The 2007 Nov 10 infrared spectral mapping revealed spatially diffuse emission with detailed mineralogical features, including those of small crystalline olivine grains. The 2008 Feb 27 spectra, and the central core of the 2007 Nov 10 spectral map, are nearly featureless, due to prevalence much larger grains that were ejected from the nucleus more slowly. The images and spectra in 2008 Mar can be segmented into three components: (1) a hemispherical shell due to the fastest (262 m/s), smallest (2 micron) debris; (2) a `blob' or `pseudonucleus' offset from the true nucleus, due to intermediate speed (93 m/s) and size (8 micron) particles; and (3) a `core' centered on the nucleus due to slower (9 m/s), larger (200 micron) ejecta. This decomposition of the mid-infrared observations also explains the temporal evolution of the mm-wave flux. The orientation of the leading edge of the ejecta shell and the ejecta `blob,' relative to the nucleus, do not change as the orientation of the Sun changes; instead, the configuration is imprinted by the orientation of the initial explosion. Using digitized versions of E. E. Barnard's images of the 1892 explosion of comet Holmes, we find remarkably similar properties of the explosion, including the direction of the ejecta remaining constant (rather than moving with the Sun). The earlier explosion was less energetic by a factor of about 20, meaning that the first and second most energetic cometary explosions witnessed by man are the 2007 and 1892 explosions of comet Holmes, in that order.

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