Rotation-stimulated structures in the CN and C3 comae of comet 103P/Hartley 2 around the EPOXI encounter

Astronomy and Astrophysics – Astrophysics – Earth and Planetary Astrophysics

Scientific paper

Rate now

  [ 0.00 ] – not rated yet Voters 0   Comments 0

Details

9 pages, 10 figures, submitted to Astron. Astrophys

Scientific paper

In late 2010 a Jupiter Family comet 103P/Hartley 2 was a subject of an intensive world-wide investigation. On UT October 20.7 the comet approached the Earth within only 0.12 AU, and on UT November 4.6 it was visited by NASA's EPOXI spacecraft. We joined this international effort and organized an observing campaign. The images of the comet were obtained through narrowband filters using the 2-m telescope of the Rozhen National Astronomical Observatory. They were taken during 4 nights around the moment of the EPOXI encounter. Image processing methods and periodicity analysis techniques were used to reveal transient coma structures and investigate their repeatability and kinematics. We observe shells, arc-, jet- and spiral-like patterns, very similar for the CN and C3 comae. The CN features expanded outwards with the sky-plane projected velocities between 0.1 to 0.3 km/s. A corkscrew structure, observed on November 6, evolved with a much higher velocity of 0.66 km/s. Photometry of the inner coma of CN shows variability with a period of 18.32+/-0.30 h (valid for the middle moment of our run, UT 2010 Nov. 5.0835), which we attribute to the nucleus rotation. This result is fully consistent with independent determinations around the same time by other teams. The pattern of repeatability is, however, not perfect, which is understendable given the suggested excitation of the rotation state, and the variability detected in CN correlates well with the cyclic changes in HCN, but only in the active phases. The revealed coma structures, along with the snapshot of the nucleus orientation obtained by EPOXI, let us estimate the spin axis orientation. We obtained RA=122 deg, Dec=+16 deg (epoch J2000.0), neglecting at this point the rotational excitation.

No associations

LandOfFree

Say what you really think

Search LandOfFree.com for scientists and scientific papers. Rate them and share your experience with other people.

Rating

Rotation-stimulated structures in the CN and C3 comae of comet 103P/Hartley 2 around the EPOXI encounter does not yet have a rating. At this time, there are no reviews or comments for this scientific paper.

If you have personal experience with Rotation-stimulated structures in the CN and C3 comae of comet 103P/Hartley 2 around the EPOXI encounter, we encourage you to share that experience with our LandOfFree.com community. Your opinion is very important and Rotation-stimulated structures in the CN and C3 comae of comet 103P/Hartley 2 around the EPOXI encounter will most certainly appreciate the feedback.

Rate now

     

Profile ID: LFWR-SCP-O-717044

  Search
All data on this website is collected from public sources. Our data reflects the most accurate information available at the time of publication.