Issue |
A&A
Volume 424, Number 1, September II 2004
|
|
---|---|---|
Page(s) | 325 - 330 | |
Section | Planets and planetary systems | |
DOI | https://doi.org/10.1051/0004-6361:20035893 | |
Published online | 17 August 2004 |
Sublimating components in the coma of comet C/2000 WM1 (LINEAR)*
1
INAF – Osservatorio Astrofisico di Arcetri, Largo E. Fermi 5, 50125 Firenze, Italy e-mail: tozzi@arcetri.astro.it
2
Instituto de Astrofísica de Andalucía, CSIC, PO Box 3004, 18080 Granada, Spain e-mail: lara@iaa.es
3
University of Florida, Gainesville, FL 32611, Florida, USA e-mail: ludmilla@astro.ufl.edu
4
Max-Planck-Institut für Astronomie, Königstuhl 17, 69117 Heidelberg, Germany e-mail: hboehnha@mpia-hd.mpg.de
5
Isaac Newton Group of Telescopes & Instituto de Astrofísica de Canarias, 38700 Santa Cruz de la Palma, Tenerife, Spain e-mail: licandro@ing.iac.es
6
Research and Scientific Support Department of ESA, ESTEC, Keplerlaan 2, 2200AG Noordwijk, The Netherlands e-mail: Rita.Schulz@esa.int
Received:
17
December
2003
Accepted:
4
May
2004
Comet C/2000 WM1 (LINEAR) was observed at ESO at the time of its closest approach to the Earth at the beginning of December 2001 (geocentric distance: 0.32 AU). The aim of the observations was characterization of the solid component of the coma. Observations have been acquired over a wide spectral range, from the visible to the thermal infrared using three telescopes simultaneously. In this paper we discuss the possible discovery of two sublimating components in the coma, one of them with scattering properties very different from those of the “common” cometary dust. We provide evidence that these two components possibly originate from different kinds of organic material.
Key words: comets individual: C/2000 WM1 (LINEAR)
© ESO, 2004
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