The persistent activity of Jupiter-family comets at 3-7 AU

    Authors

    M. S. Kelley; Y. R. Fernandez; J. Licandro; C. M. Lisse; W. T. Reach; M. F. A'Hearn; J. Bauer; H. Campins; A. Fitzsimmons; O. Groussin; P. L. Lamy; S. C. Lowry; K. J. Meech; J. Pittichova; C. Snodgrass; I. Toth;H. A. Weaver

    Comments

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    Abbreviated Journal Title

    Icarus

    Keywords

    Comets; Comets, Dust; Comets, Coma; Infrared observations; SPITZER-SPACE-TELESCOPE; SHORT-PERIOD COMETS; DEEP IMPACT; 103P/HARTLEY; 2; SOLAR-SYSTEM; INNER COMA; NUCLEI; DUST; 9P/TEMPEL-1; PHOTOMETRY; Astronomy & Astrophysics

    Abstract

    We present an analysis of comet activity based on the Spitzer Space Telescope component of the Survey of the Ensemble Physical Properties of Cometary Nuclei. We show that the survey is well suited to measuring the activity of Jupiter-family comets at 3-7 AU from the Sun. Dust was detected in 33 of 89 targets (37 +/- 6%), and we conclude that 21 comets (24 +/- 5%) have morphologies that suggest ongoing or recent cometary activity. Our dust detections are sensitivity limited, therefore our measured activity rate is necessarily a lower limit. All comets with small perihelion distances (q < 1.8 AU) are inactive in our survey, and the active comets in our sample are strongly biased to post-perihelion epochs. We introduce the quantity epsilon f rho, intended to be a thermal emission counterpart to the often reported Af rho, and find that the comets with large perihelion distances likely have greater dust production rates than other comets in our survey at 3-7 AU from the Sun, indicating a bias in the discovered Jupiter-family comet population. By examining the orbital history of our survey sample, we suggest that comets perturbed to smaller perihelion distances in the past 150 yr are more likely to be active, but more study on this effect is needed. (C) 2013 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

    Journal Title

    Icarus

    Volume

    225

    Issue/Number

    1

    Publication Date

    1-1-2013

    Document Type

    Article

    Language

    English

    First Page

    475

    Last Page

    494

    WOS Identifier

    WOS:000321161800039

    ISSN

    0019-1035

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