| Issue |
A&A
Volume 628, August 2019
|
|
|---|---|---|
| Article Number | A128 | |
| Number of page(s) | 5 | |
| Section | Planets and planetary systems | |
| DOI | https://doi.org/10.1051/0004-6361/201833960 | |
| Published online | 20 August 2019 | |
First observations of an outbursting comet with the MUSE integral-field spectrograph
European Southern Observatory,
Alonso de Cordova 3107,
Vitacura,
Santiago,
Chile
e-mail: copitom@eso.org
Received:
25
July
2018
Accepted:
28
May
2019
We present the first observations of outbursting comet C/2015 ER61 (PANSTARRS) with the Multi-Unit Spectroscopic Explorer (MUSE). The comet was observed on April 9, 2017, only five days after it underwent a significant outburst during which the total brightness increased by a factor of ~7.5. Based on the MUSE observations, we produce simultaneous maps of the CN, C2, NH2 comae, and the dust coma. In turn, we applied image enhancement techniques in order to reveal features in the coma. By comparing the coma morphology for the dust and CN, C2, and NH2, we investigate the release mechanism of those gas species in the coma of comet ER61. We present evidence that NH2 could be released by icy or organic-rich dust grains.
Key words: comets: individual: C/2016 ER61 (PANSTARRS)
© ESO 2019
Current usage metrics show cumulative count of Article Views (full-text article views including HTML views, PDF and ePub downloads, according to the available data) and Abstracts Views on Vision4Press platform.
Data correspond to usage on the plateform after 2015. The current usage metrics is available 48-96 hours after online publication and is updated daily on week days.
Initial download of the metrics may take a while.