Issue |
A&A
Volume 687, July 2024
|
|
---|---|---|
Article Number | A297 | |
Number of page(s) | 12 | |
Section | Planets and planetary systems | |
DOI | https://doi.org/10.1051/0004-6361/202449145 | |
Published online | 24 July 2024 |
Dust properties and their variations in comet C/2013 X1 (PANSTARRS)
1
Astronomical Institute of the Slovak Academy of Sciences,
05960
Tatranska Lomnica,
Slovak Republic
e-mail: oshubina@ta3.sk
2
Planetary Atmospheres Group, Institute for Basic Science (IBS),
Daejeon
34126,
South Korea
3
Astronomical Observatory of Taras Shevchenko National University of Kyiv,
3 Observatorna St.,
Kyiv
04053,
Ukraine
4
Max Planck Institute for Solar System Research,
Justus-von-Liebig-Weg 3,
37077
Göttingen,
Germany
5
Space Science Institute,
4750 Walnut Street, Boulder Suite 205,
CO 80301,
USA
6
Department of Atmospheric Sciences, Texas A&M University,
College Station,
TX,
USA
Received:
2
January
2024
Accepted:
11
June
2024
Context. We analyze the results of photometric monitoring of comet C/2013 X1 (PANSTARRS) from December 2015 until January 2016 obtained within B, V, and R Johnson–Cousins filters.
Aims. The main objective is to investigate the dust coma and to obtain the physical characteristics of its dust particles.
Methods. We analyzed our observations using model-agglomerated debris particles, and we constrained the microphysical properties of the dust in comet C/2013 X1 (PANSTARRS) on the pre-outburst and post-outburst epochs. Moreover, we applied a geometrical model to the images processed by digital filters to estimate the rotational period of the nucleus.
Results. Our campaign revealed a sharp increase in the comet brightness on January 1, 2016. The B − V and V − R colors calculated within an aperture size of 17 000 km appear to be mostly red, except for the outburst date. The dust production (A f ρ proxy) and normalized spectral gradient S′ (B − R) dramatically changed on January 2 as compared to what was seen in December 2015. According to this model, the C/2013 X1 coma was populated by 70% organic-matter particles by volume and by two types of silicate particles together, constituting the other 30%. One type of silicate particles was composed of Mg-rich silicates, whereas the other type was composed of both Mg-rich and Fe-poor silicates. Using the geometrical model, we estimate the nucleus rotational period to be (24.02 ± 0.02) h. We interpret the observed coma morphology by two jet structures, one structure that formed by the near-pole active area at a latitude of (85+5−3)°, and the other structure formed by an active area at a latitude of (+40 ± 5)°.
Key words: methods: numerical / methods: observational / techniques: photometric / comets: general / comets: individual: C/2013 X1
© The Authors 2024
Open Access article, published by EDP Sciences, under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
This article is published in open access under the Subscribe to Open model. Subscribe to A&A to support open access publication.
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.