Astronomy and Astrophysics – Astronomy
Scientific paper
Sep 2009
adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-data_query?bibcode=2009dps....41.2004s&link_type=abstract
American Astronomical Society, DPS meeting #41, #20.04
Astronomy and Astrophysics
Astronomy
Scientific paper
We conducted an intensive observational campaign of Comet 10P/Tempel 2 during its 1999/2000 apparition, obtaining 31 nights of imaging with Lowell telescopes over an 11-month interval. Emphasis early in the apparition was given to obtaining nucleus lightcurve measurements while in later months the primary goal was to study coma morphology. Based on data obtained at the 1988 apparition, several researchers showed that Tempel 2 exhibits little cometary activity until shortly prior to perihelion, and that the rotational lightcurve of the nucleus has a large amplitude consistent with a highly elongated nucleus. An overall period of 8.932 hr was determined by Sekanina (1991); however, based on lightcurve data obtained in late 1994, Mueller and Ferrin (1996) obtained 5 possible periods, each different from the 1988 solution and from which they inferred a possible small spin-up or spin-down of the nucleus. Since our early 1999 observations would be taken within the same inter-perihelion interval as the 1994, we would expect no significant torquing due to activity near perihelion, and thus the same period to be present as in 1994. Our observations were planned to discriminate between Mueller and Ferrin's 5 viable solutions, and our preliminary rotation period of 8.937 hr indeed eliminates 4 of their answers, leaving only their solution of 8.939 hr. With two perihelion passages having occured between the 1988 and the 1994 and 1999 data sets, these results suggest that the nucleus rotational period is lengthening by only about 10 seconds per apparition.
Our data also exhibit periodic variability of the coma brightness, and an offset in the position angle of the CN fan with respect to the dust. Additional analysis of the coma morphology is ongoing and we will present these results along with a more refined period solution. This research is supported by NASA's Planetary Astronomy Program.
Farnham Tony L.
Knight Matthew M.
Schleicher David G.
Schwieterman Edward W.
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