Modeling the changing spin state of comet 9P/Tempel 1

Details Modeling the changing spin state of comet 9P/Tempel 1 Modeling the changing spin state of comet 9P/Tempel 1

May 2010

adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-data_query?bibcode=2010dda....41.0915c&link_type=abstract

American Astronomical Society, DDA meeting #41, #9.15; Bulletin of the American Astronomical Society, Vol. 41, p.936

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The Deep Impact mission created an artificial crater on Comet 9P/Tempel 1, but did not succeed in obtaining imagery of the crater. The Stardust-NExT mission in now on course to visit Tempel 1 on Feb. 14, 2011 and, among other objectives, hopefully capture images of the crater. This goal requires that the spacecraft arrive at a time that ensures that the comet is oriented such the crater is well lit and visible from the Stardust-NExT spacecraft.
We report on two independent efforts to model the rotation state of the comet in order to predict the comet orientation and estimate the optimal time of arrival for the spacecraft. We have used a massive data set of over 2500 ground-based photometric measurements spread over 11 years, plus Hubble Space Telescope measurements in 1997, 2004 and 2009, as well as Spitzer Space Telescope observations in 2004. This large and diverse data set of photometric light curve data reveal that the spin rate of Comet 9P/Tempel 1 has increased by statistically significant amounts at each of the past three perihelion passages. We believe that this spin rate increase is due to torques associated with cometary out-gassing activity, and we show that the torque history required to match the observations requires two or more discrete torque-producing source regions acting on the nucleus. We have developed an approximate torque profile for the 2011 encounter that we use to estimate the optimal spacecraft arrival time.

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