Astronomy and Astrophysics – Astronomy
Scientific paper
May 1996
adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-data_query?bibcode=1996aas...188.6204f&link_type=abstract
American Astronomical Society, 188th AAS Meeting, #62.04; Bulletin of the American Astronomical Society, Vol. 28, p.926
Astronomy and Astrophysics
Astronomy
Scientific paper
The long-period Comet Hyakutake (C/1996 B2) passed 0.10 AU from Earth on 1996 March 25.3 UT, the closest approach of a comet since 1983. The doubly-fortuitous proximity ( ~ 75 km/arcsec at perigee) and high intrinsic brightness provided a unique opportunity to set up a detailed observational program to study the comet's nucleus. We observed the object in the optical at the KPNO 0.9-m telescope, in the near- and thermal-infrared at NASA/IRTF, and in the microwave at VLA. Our objectives were to photometrically resolve the nucleus, obtain a cross section and albedo measurement, extract the rotation period, and obtain an estimate of the surface temperature. The nucleus and near-nuclear region of the comet is a poorly studied region, owing to the typically-large geocentric distances ( ~ 1 AU) which cause the flux from the coma to overwhelm any information we would get from the nucleus. In addition, gas and dust emission and small effective radii contribute to the difficulties. Thus, nuclear properties are well-known for only a handful of specimens. The IRTF (19 - 22 and 24 - 25 Mar) and KPNO (19 - 23 Mar) observations were performed almost all simultaneously. The temporal coincidence of these data was a key aspect in determining properties of the nucleus; data from the two sets of wavelengths allowed us to differentiate between scattered sunlight and intrinsic emission. Observations at IRTF employed two cameras, NSFCAM (1-5 mu m) and MIRAC2 (10 mu m). Our VLA observations were performed on 27 March, observing the comet at 3.6 cm in an attempt to detect the comet's thermal microwave continuum emission. We present here results from the preliminary reduction of data from all three wavelength regimes.
A'Hearn Michael F.
Dayal Aditya
Deutsch Lynne K.
Fazio Giacomo
Fernandez Yan R.
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