The 163 comets observed during the WISE/NEOWISE prime mission represent the largest infrared survey to date of comets, providing constraints on dust, nucleus sizes, and CO+CO2 production. We present detailed analyses of the WISE/NEOWISE comet discoveries, and discuss observations of the active comets showing 4.6 μm band excess. We find a possible relation between dust and CO+CO2 production, as well as possible differences in the sizes of long and short period comet nuclei.
@article{arxiv.1509.08446,
title = {The NEOWISE-Discovered Comet Population and the CO+CO2 production rates},
author = {James M. Bauer and Rachel Stevenson and Emily Kramer and A. K. Mainzer and Tommy Grav and Joseph R. Masiero and Yan R. Fernández and Roc M. Cutri and John W. Dailey and Frank J. Masci and Karen J. Meech and Russel Walker and C. M. Lisse and Paul R. Weissman and Carrie R. Nugent and Sarah Sonnett and Nathan Blair and Andrew Lucas and Robert S. McMillan and Edward L. Wright and the WISE and NEOWISE Teams},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:1509.08446},
year = {2015}
}
Comments
67 pages, 10 figures, 6 Tables; Accepted by The Astrophysical Journal