SWAS observations of comet 9P/Tempel 1 and Deep Impact
Abstract
On 4 July 2005 at 1:52 UT the Deep Impact mission successfully completed its goal to hit the nucleus of 9P/Tempel 1 with an impactor, forming a crater on the nucleus and ejecting material into the coma of the comet. The 370 kg impactor collided with the sunlit side of the nucleus with a relative velocity of 10.2 km/s. NASA's Submillimeter Wave Astronomy Satellite (SWAS) observed the 1(10)-1(01) ortho-water ground-state rotational transition in comet 9P/Tempel 1 before, during, and after the impact. No excess emission from the impact was detected by SWAS. However, the water production rate of the comet showed large natural variations of more than a factor of three during the weeks before the impact.
Cite
@article{arxiv.astro-ph/0509850,
title = {SWAS observations of comet 9P/Tempel 1 and Deep Impact},
author = {Frank Bensch and Gary J. Melnick and David A. Neufeld and Martin Harwit and Ronald L. Snell and Brian M. Patten},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:astro-ph/0509850},
year = {2009}
}
Comments
to appear in the proceedings of the IAU Symposium No. 231: "Astrochemistry - Recent Successes and Current Callenges". Typo corrected in author affiliation list