Mining the Deep Impact Spitzer Archive for Crystalline Silicates

Computer Science

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Scientific paper

The Deep Impact Mission hit comet Jupiter Family 9P/Tempel 1 on 2005 July 4 and expelled surface and subsurface nuclear materials into its coma. To our surprise, the dust grains and the volatile gases were more similar in composition and abundance to Oort cloud (long-period) comet Hale-Bopp than to any previously observed Jupiter Family (short-period) comet. Crystalline silicate features are much more pronounced in the Deep Impact-induced coma compared to the normal coma. We propose to investigate whether the silicate feature and the crystalline silicate features are stronger because the grain structure is different (e.g., more porous), or whether the grains are of different composition. If the subsurface and surface grains are of different composition, this has implications for the `aging' of Jupiter Family comets in the inner solar system or implies the nucleus is inhomogeneous on even smaller scales than suggested by the TALPS model (Belton et al. 2007). Our program will utilize the Spitzer (+IRS) archive data obtained over a 164 hr duration, as well as observations of the pre-impact coma and the coma weeks after impact. The Deep Impact Spitzer data set is of unparalleled signal-to-noise: the 10''-wide IRS slit samples the low-surface brightness pre-impact coma and reveals crystalline silicate emission features that are not discernible in 8-m class telescope spectra of the inner coma.

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