Bibcode
Fernandez, Y.; Kelley, M.; Lamy, P.; Reach, W.; Toth, I.; Groussin, O.; Lisse, C.; A'Hearn, M.; Bauer, J.; Campins, H.; Fitzsimmons, A.; Licandro, J.; Lowry, S.; Meech, K.; Pittichova, J.; Snodgrass, C.; Weaver, H.
Bibliographical reference
American Geophysical Union, Spring Meeting 2008, abstract #P41A-08
Advertised on:
5
2008
Citations
0
Refereed citations
0
Description
We present results from SEPPCoN, our Survey of Ensemble Physical
Properties of Cometary Nuclei. This survey involves studying 100
Jupiter-family comets (JFCs) -- about 30% of the known population -- at
both mid-infrared and visible wavelengths. We have used the Spitzer
Space Telescope to study the comets' thermal emission, and many
ground-based telescopes (Apache Point's ARC 3.5-m; ESO's NTT 3.6-m;
MKO's UH 2.2-m and Keck 10-m; Palomar's 5-m and 1.5-m; ORM's WHT 4.2-m,
NOT 2.6-m, and LT 2-m; Cerro Pachon's SOAR 4.1-m) to study the reflected
sunlight. The Spitzer observations (imaging with IRS PU and MIPS) are
complete, and the ground-based observations (imaging in at least R band)
are about half complete. Almost all our targets are imaged while farther
than 4 AU from the Sun, to minimize (and often eliminate) confusion
caused by dust from cometary activity. The Spitzer data constrain the
effective radii of the nuclei; we find preliminarily that the cumulative
size distribution's power-law slope is similar to what has been found by
others using visible wavelength studies, suggesting that there is no
strong trend of albedo with size. The Spitzer data also tell us about
the thermal inertia, and we find that many -- though not all -- cometary
nuclei seem to have low values of this, consistent with a porous,
fluffy, poorly-conducting, dusty surface layer. The Spitzer images show
that about one-third of our sample appeared with extended dust emission
despite being close to aphelion. We find that often the activity
observed at these distances seems to turn off abruptly once a JFC passes
aphelion. We have used dynamical analysis to constrain the dust grain
sizes and thereby distinguish dust tails from dust trails. The dust
temperatures are in most cases consistent with isothermal, low-albedo
grains in LTE. We thank the Spitzer Science Center and the TACs of the
aforementioned telescopes for supporting this research.