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: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.
² Instituto de Astrofísica de Andalucía, CSIC, PO Box 3004, 18080 Granada, Spain e-mail: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.
³ University of Florida, Gainesville, FL 32611, Florida, USA e-mail: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.
⁴ Max-Planck-Institut für Astronomie, Königstuhl 17, 69117 Heidelberg, Germany e-mail: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.
⁵ Isaac Newton Group of Telescopes & Instituto de Astrofísica de Canarias, 38700 Santa Cruz de la Palma, Tenerife, Spain e-mail: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.
⁶ Research and Scientific Support Department of ESA, ESTEC, Keplerlaan 2, 2200AG Noordwijk, The Netherlands e-mail: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

Received: 17 December 2003
Accepted: 4 May 2004

Abstract

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.