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Constraining the Dust Coma Properties of Comet C/Siding Spring (2013 A1) at Large Heliocentric Distances | | Jian-Yang Li
; Nalin H. Samarasinha
; Michael S.P. Kelley
; Tony L. Farnham
; Michael F. A'Hearn
; Max J. Mutchler
; Carey M. Lisse
; W. Alan Delamere
; | | Date: |
31 Oct 2014 | | Abstract: | The close encounter of Comet C/2013 A1 (Siding Spring) with Mars on October
19, 2014 presented an extremely rare opportunity to obtain the first flyby
quality data of the nucleus and inner coma of a dynamically new comet. However,
the comet’s dust tail potentially posed an impact hazard to those spacecraft.
To characterize the comet at large heliocentric distances, study its long-term
evolution, and provide critical inputs to hazard modeling, we imaged C/Siding
Spring with the Hubble Space Telescope when the comet was at 4.58, 3.77, and
3.28 AU from the Sun. The dust production rate, parameterized by the quantity
Af$
ho$, was 2500, 2100, and 1700 cm (5000-km radius aperture) for the three
epochs, respectively. The color of the dust coma is 5.0$pm$0.3$\%$/100 nm for
the first two epochs, and 9.0$pm$0.3$\%$/100 nm for the last epoch, and
reddens with increasing cometocentric distance out to ~3000 km from the
nucleus. The spatial distribution and the temporal evolution of the dust color
are most consistent with the existence of icy grains in the coma. Two jet-like
dust features appear in the north-northwest and southeast directions projected
in the sky plane. Within each epoch of 1-2 hour duration, no temporal
variations were observed for either feature, but the PA of the southeastern
feature varied between the three epochs by ~30$^circ$. The dust feature
morphology suggests two possible orientations for the rotational pole of the
nucleus, (RA, Dec) = (295$^circpm$5$^circ$, +43$^circpm$2$^circ$) and
(190$^circpm$10$^circ$, 50$^circpm$5$^circ$), or their diametrically
opposite orientations. | | Source: | arXiv, 1411.0027 | | Services: | Forum | Review | PDF | Favorites | |
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