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Register a new userA Distribution of Large Particles in the Coma of Comet 103P/Hartley 2
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The coma of comet 103P/Hartley 2 has a significant population of large particles observed as point sources in images taken by the Deep Impact spacecraft. We measure their spatial and flux distributions, and attempt to constrain their composition. The flux distribution of these particles implies a very steep size distribution with power-law slopes ranging from -6.6 to -4.7. The radii of the particles extend up to 20 cm, and perhaps up to 2 m, but their exact sizes depend on their unknown light scattering properties. We consider two cases: bright icy material, and dark dusty material. The icy case better describes the particles if water sublimation from the particles causes a significant rocket force, which we propose as the best method to account for the observed spatial distribution. Solar radiation is a plausible alternative, but only if the particles are very low density aggregates. If we treat the particles as mini-nuclei, we estimate they account for <16-80% of the comets total water production rate (within 20.6 km). Dark dusty particles, however, are not favored based on mass arguments. The water production rate from bright icy particles is constrained with an upper limit of 0.1 to 0.5% of the total water production rate of the comet. If indeed icy with a high albedo, these particles do not appear to account for the comets large water production rate. production rate. Erratum: We have corrected the radii and masses of the large particles of comet 103P/Hartley 2 and present revised conclusions in the attached erratum.
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The Jupiter-family comet 103P/Hartley 2 (103P) was the target of the NASA EPOXI mission. In support of this mission, we conducted observations from radio to submillimeter wavelengths of comet 103P in the three weeks preceding the spacecraft rendezvous on UT 2010 November 4.58. This time period included the passage at perihelion and the closest approach of the comet to the Earth. Here we report detections of HCN, H2CO, CS, and OH and upper limits for HNC and DCN towards 103P, using the Arizona Radio Observatory Kitt Peak 12m telescope (ARO 12m) and submillimeter telescope (SMT), the James Clerk Maxwell Telescope (JCMT) and the Greenbank Telescope (GBT). The water production rate, QH2O = (0.67 - 1.07) x 10^28 s^-1, was determined from the GBT OH data. From the average abundance ratios of HCN and H2CO relative to water (0.13 +/- 0.03 % and 0.14 +/- 0.03 %, respectively), we conclude that H2CO is depleted and HCN is normal with respect to typically-observed cometary mixing ratios. However, the abundance ratio of HCN with water shows a large diversity with time. Using the JCMT data we measured an upper limit for the DCN/HCN ratio <0.01. Consecutive observations of ortho- H2CO and para-H2CO on November 2 (from data obtained at the JCMT), allowed us to derive an ortho : para ratio (OPR) ~ 2.12 +/- 0.59 (1sigma), corresponding to Tspin > 8 K (2sigma).
We have used the Spitzer 22-um peakup array to observe thermal emission from the nucleus and trail of comet 103P/Hartley 2, the target of NASAs Deep Impact Extended mission. The comet was observed on UT 2008 August 12 and 13, while the comet was 5.5 AU from the Sun. We obtained two 200-frame sets of photometric imaging over a 2.7-hour period. To within the errors of the measurement, we find no detection of any temporal variation between the two images. The comet showed extended emission beyond a point source in the form of a faint trail directed along the comets anti-velocity vector. After modeling and removing the trail emission, a NEATM model for the nuclear emission with beaming parameter of 0.95 +/- 0.20 indicates a small effective radius for the nucleus of 0.57 +/- 0.08 km and low geometric albedo 0.028 +/- 0.009 (1 sigma). With this nucleus size and a water production rate of 3 x 10^28 molecules s-1 at perihelion (AHearn et al. 1995) we estimate that ~100% of the surface area is actively emitting volatile material at perihelion. Reports of emission activity out to ~5 AU (Lowry et al. 2001, Snodgrass et al. 2008) support our finding of a highly active nuclear surface. Compared to Deep Impacts first target, comet 9P/Tempel 1, Hartley 2s nucleus is one-fifth as wide (and about one-hundredth the mass) while producing a similar amount of outgassing at perihelion with about 13 times the active surface fraction. Unlike Tempel 1, it should be highly susceptible to jet driven spin-up torques, and so could be rotating at a much higher frequency. Barring a catastrophic breakup or major fragmentation event, the comet should be able to survive up to another 100 apparitions (~700 yrs) at its current rate of mass loss.
We present an analysis of Kitt Peak National Observatory and Lowell Observatory observations of comet 103P/Hartley 2 obtained from August through December 2010. The results are then compared with contemporaneous observations made by the EPOXI spacecraft. Each ground-based dataset has previously been investigated individually; the combined dataset has complementary coverage that reduces the time between observing runs and allows us to determine additional apparent periods at intermediate times. We compare CN coma morphology between ground-based datasets, making nine new measurements of apparent periods. The first five are consistent with the roughly linearly increasing apparent period during the apparition found by previous authors. The final four suggest that the change in apparent period slowed or stopped by late November. We also measure an inner coma lightcurve in both CN and R-band ground-based images, finding a single-peaked lightcurve which repeats in phase with the coma morphology. The apparent period from the lightcurve had significantly larger uncertainties than from the coma morphology, but varied over the apparition in a similar manner. Our ground-based lightcurve aligns with the published EPOXI lightcurve, indicating that the lightcurve represents changing activity rather than viewing geometry of structures in the coma. The EPOXI lightcurve can best be phased by a triple-peaked period near 54-55 hr that increases from October to November. This phasing reveals that the spacing between maxima is not constant, and that the overall lightcurve shape evolves from one triple-peaked cycle to the next. These behaviors suggest that much of the scatter in apparent periods derived from ground-based datasets acquired at similar epochs are likely due to limited sampling of the data.
Comet 103P/Hartley~2 was observed on Nov. 1-6, 2010, coinciding with the fly-by of the space probe EPOXI. The goal was to connect the large scale phenomena observed from the ground, with those at small scale observed from the spacecraft. The comet showed strong activity correlated with the rotation of its nucleus, also observed by the spacecraft. We report here the characterization of the solid component produced by this activity, via observations of the emission in two spectral regions where only grain scattering of the solar radiation is present. We show that the grains produced by this activity had a lifetime of the order of 5 hours, compatible with the spacecraft observations of the large icy chunks. Moreover, the grains produced by one of the active regions have a very red color. This suggests an organic component mixed with the ice in the grains.
We report measurements of eight primary volatiles (H2O, HCN, CH4, C2H6, CH3OH, C2H2, H2CO, and NH3) and two product species (OH and NH2) in comet 103P/Hartley-2 using high dispersion infrared spectroscopy. We quantified the long- and short-term behavior of volatile release over a three-month interval that encompassed the comets close approach to Earth, its perihelion passage, and flyby of the comet by the Deep Impact spacecraft during the EPOXI mission. We present production rates for individual species, their mixing ratios relative to water, and their spatial distributions in the coma on multiple dates. The production rates for water, ethane, HCN, and methanol vary in a manner consistent with independent measures of nucleus rotation, but mixing ratios for HCN, C2H6, & CH3OH are independent of rotational phase. Our results demonstrate that the ensemble average composition of gas released from the nucleus is well defined, and relatively constant over the three-month interval (September 18 through December 17). If individual vents vary in composition, enough diverse vents must be active simultaneously to approximate (in sum) the bulk composition of the nucleus. The released primary volatiles exhibit diverse spatial properties which favor the presence of separate polar and apolar ice phases in the nucleus, establish dust and gas release from icy clumps (and also, directly from the nucleus), and provide insights into the driver for the cyanogen (CN) polar jet. The spatial distributions of C2H6 & HCN along the near-polar jet (UT 19.5 October) and nearly orthogonal to it (UT 22.5 October) are discussed relative to the origin of CN. The ortho-para ratio (OPR) of water was 2.85 pm 0.20; the lower bound (2.65) defines Tspin > 32 K. These values are consistent with results returned from ISO in 1997.
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