Spitzer Space Telescope Observations of the Nucleus of Comet 8P/Tuttle

Astronomy and Astrophysics – Astronomy

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Scientific paper

We observed comet 8P/Tuttle, a nearly isotropic comet (NIC), with the IRS and MIPS instruments of the Spitzer Space Telescope (SST). The IRS observations were performed on 2 November 2007 when the comet was at 1.32 AU from SST, 1.61 AU from the Sun, and nearly 3 months before perihelion on 27 January 2008 when its heliocentric distance was 1 AU. We used IRS in low-resolution mode to obtain the spectral energy distribution (SED) from 5 to 35 micron. The MIPS observations were performed on 22 June 2008 when the comet was at 1.58 AU from SST and 2.24 AU from the Sun. We sampled a period of 15 hours with 20 MIPS images at 24 µm, and also acquired 4 MIPS images at 70 µm to better constrain the SED. From these IRS and MIPS observations, we derived the size and thermal inertia of the nucleus of comet 8P/Tuttle. The (010-000) vibrational emission band of water at 6.3 microns was also detected, and we derived the water production rate and active surface fraction.

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