Bibcode
Fernández, Y. R.; Kelley, M. S.; Lamy, P. L.; Toth, I.; Groussin, O.; Lisse, C. M.; A’Hearn, M. F.; Bauer, J. M.; Campins, H.; Fitzsimmons, A.; Licandro, J.; Lowry, S. C.; Meech, K. J.; Pittichová, J.; Reach, W. T.; Snodgrass, C.; Weaver, H. A.
Bibliographical reference
Icarus, Volume 226, Issue 1, p. 1138-1170.
Advertised on:
9
2013
Journal
Citations
122
Refereed citations
111
Description
We present results from SEPPCoN, an on-going Survey of the Ensemble
Physical Properties of Cometary Nuclei. In this report we discuss
mid-infrared measurements of the thermal emission from 89 nuclei of
Jupiter-family comets (JFCs). All data were obtained in 2006 and 2007
using imaging capabilities of the Spitzer Space Telescope. The comets
were typically 4–5 AU from the Sun when observed and most showed
only a point-source with little or no extended emission from dust. For
those comets showing dust, we used image processing to photometrically
extract the nuclei. For all 89 comets, we present new effective radii,
and for 57 comets we present beaming parameters. Thus our survey
provides the largest compilation of radiometrically-derived physical
properties of nuclei to date. We have six main conclusions: (a) The
average beaming parameter of the JFC population is 1.03 ± 0.11,
consistent with unity; coupled with the large distance of the nuclei
from the Sun, this indicates that most nuclei have Tempel 1-like thermal
inertia. Only two of the 57 nuclei had outlying values (in a statistical
sense) of infrared beaming. (b) The known JFC population is not complete
even at 3 km radius, and even for comets that approach to ˜2 AU
from the Sun and so ought to be more discoverable. Several
recently-discovered comets in our survey have small perihelia and large
(above ˜2 km) radii. (c) With our radii, we derive an independent
estimate of the JFC nuclear cumulative size distribution (CSD), and we
find that it has a power-law slope of around ‑1.9, with the exact
value depending on the bounds in radius. (d) This power-law is close to
that derived by others from visible-wavelength observations that assume
a fixed geometric albedo, suggesting that there is no strong dependence
of geometric albedo with radius. (e) The observed CSD shows a hint of
structure with an excess of comets with radii 3–6 km. (f) Our CSD
is consistent with the idea that the intrinsic size distribution of the
JFC population is not a simple power-law and lacks many sub-kilometer
objects.
Related projects
Minor Bodies of the Solar System
This project studies the physical and compositional properties of the so-called minor bodies of the Solar System, that includes asteroids, icy objects, and comets. Of special interest are the trans-neptunian objects (TNOs), including those considered the most distant objects detected so far (Extreme-TNOs or ETNOs); the comets and the comet-asteroid
Julia de
León Cruz