Exposed Water Ice Deposits on the Surface of Comet 9P/Tempel 1
- 10 March 2006
- journal article
- other
- Published by American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) in Science
- Vol. 311 (5766), 1453-1455
- https://doi.org/10.1126/science.1123632
Abstract
We report the direct detection of solid water ice deposits exposed on the surface of comet 9P/Tempel 1, as observed by the Deep Impact mission. Three anomalously colored areas are shown to include water ice on the basis of their near-infrared spectra, which include diagnostic water ice absorptions at wavelengths of 1.5 and 2.0 micrometers. These absorptions are well modeled as a mixture of nearby non-ice regions and 3 to 6% water ice particles 10 to 50 micrometers in diameter. These particle sizes are larger than those ejected during the impact experiment, which suggests that the surface deposits are loose aggregates. The total area of exposed water ice is substantially less than that required to support the observed ambient outgassing from the comet, which likely has additional source regions below the surface.Keywords
This publication has 25 references indexed in Scilit:
- Subaru Telescope Observations of Deep ImpactScience, 2005
- Compositional maps of Saturn's moon Phoebe from imaging spectroscopyNature, 2005
- Saturn's moon Phoebe as a captured body from the outer Solar SystemNature, 2005
- Short-wavelength infrared (1.3–2.6 μm) observations of the nucleus of Comet 19P/BorrellyIcarus, 2004
- The Deep Space 1 encounter with Comet 19P/BorrellyIcarus, 2004
- Evidence of Icy Grains in Comet C/2002 T7 (LINEAR) at 3.52 AUThe Astrophysical Journal, 2004
- Detection of Water Ice on Saturn's Satellite PhoebeIcarus, 1999
- The Detection of Water Ice in Comet Hale-BoppIcarus, 1997
- An idealized short-period comet model: Surface insolation, H2O flux, dust flux, and mantle evolutionIcarus, 1984
- On the dectectability of icy grains in the comae of cometsIcarus, 1981