Bibcode
DOI
Casas, Ricard; Bellot Rubio, Luis R.; Serra-Ricart, Miquel; Kidger, M. R.
Bibliographical reference
Astrophysical Journal Letters v.461, p.L119
Advertised on:
4
1996
Citations
28
Refereed citations
28
Description
We present observations of the evolution of a prominent spiral jet in
the inner coma of comet Hale-Bopp (1995 O1). The observations, taken
with the 82 cm IAC-80 telescope at the Teide Observatory, were made on
1995 August 25, 27, 28, and 31, and on September 4--7, as part of an
ongoing program of monitoring the comet in Tenerife. The jet is observed
to show a nearly, but not completely, constant position angle over the
two weeks of observation. Although it is generally assumed that the jet
is a dust event, some aspects of the morphology and behavior mean that
the hypothesis that it is a gas jet cannot be ruled out. No single
hypothesis is thought to be completely satisfactory. Between our first
detection of the jet on August 25 and its disappearance on September 7,
we see the point of inflection within the jet expand away from the
nucleus at a highly constant velocity. At the same time, the jet fades
considerably. This jet event seems different from others that have been
observed later because the collimation of the beam is very tight, rather
than the highly wound spiral structure shown by some later jets.