Comet nucleus
This article needs to be updated.(July 2020) |
The nucleus is the solid, central part of a
Results from the
Paradigm
Comet nuclei, at ~1 km to at times tens of kilometers, could not be
"Flying sandbank"
The "flying sandbank" model, first proposed in the late-1800s, posits a comet as a swarm of bodies, not a discrete object at all. Activity is the loss of both volatiles, and population members.[10] This model was championed in midcentury by Raymond Lyttleton, along with an origin. As the Sun passed through interstellar nebulosity, material would clump in wake eddies. Some would be lost, but some would remain in heliocentric orbits. The weak capture explained long, eccentric, inclined comet orbits. Ices per se were lacking; volatiles were stored by adsorption on grains.[11][12][13][14]
"Dirty snowball"
Beginning in the 1950s,
"Icy dirtball"
It has been a long time since comet nuclei could be imagined as frozen snowballs.[20] Whipple had already postulated a separate crust and interior. Before Halley's 1986 apparition, it appeared that an exposed ice surface would have some finite lifetime, even behind a coma. Halley's nucleus was predicted to be dark, not bright, due to preferential destruction/escape of gases, and retention of refractories.[21][22][23][24] The term dust mantling has been in common use since more than 35 years.[25]
The Halley results exceeded even these- comets are not merely dark, but among the darkest objects in the Solar System [26] Furthermore, prior dust estimates were severe undercounts. Both finer grains and larger pebbles appeared in spacecraft detectors, but not ground telescopes. The volatile fraction also included organics, not merely water and other gases. Dust-ice ratios appeared much closer than thought. Extremely low densities (0.1 to 0.5 g cm-3) were derived.[27] The nucleus was still assumed to be majority-ice,[18] perhaps overwhelmingly so.[19]
Modern theory
Three rendezvous missions aside, Halley was one example. Its unfavorable trajectory also caused brief flybys at extreme speed, at one time. More frequent missions broadened the sample of targets, using more advanced instruments. By chance, events such as the breakups of
Densities were confirmed as quite low, ~0.6 g cm3. Comets were highly porous,[28] and fragile on micro-[29] and macro-scales.[30]
Refractory-to-ice ratios are much higher,[31] at least 3:1,[32] possibly ~5:1,[33] ~6:1,[34][25] or more.[35][36][37]
This is a full reversal from the dirty snowball model. The Rosetta science team has coined the term "mineral organices," for minerals and organics with a minor fraction of ices.[35]
Manx comets,
Origin
Comets, or their precursors, formed in the outer Solar System, possibly millions of years before planet formation.[38] How and when comets formed is debated, with distinct implications for Solar System formation, dynamics, and geology. Three-dimensional computer simulations indicate the major structural features observed on cometary nuclei can be explained by pairwise low velocity accretion of weak cometesimals.[39][40] The currently favored creation mechanism is that of the nebular hypothesis, which states that comets are probably a remnant of the original planetesimal "building blocks" from which the planets grew.[41][42][43]
Astronomers think that comets originate in the
Size
Most cometary nuclei are thought to be no more than about 16 kilometers (10 miles) across.
The potato-shaped nucleus of
contains equal amounts of ice and dust.During a flyby in September 2001, the Deep Space 1 spacecraft observed the nucleus of Comet Borrelly and found it to be about half the size (8×4×4 km)[50] of the nucleus of Halley's Comet.[48] Borrelly's nucleus was also potato-shaped and had a dark black surface.[48] Like Halley's Comet, Comet Borrelly only released gas from small areas where holes in the crust exposed the ice to sunlight.
The nucleus of comet
The nucleus of
The largest
Known comets have been estimated to have an average density of 0.6 g/cm3.[53] Below is a list of comets that have had estimated sizes, densities, and masses.
Name | Dimensions km |
Density g/cm3 |
Mass kg[54] |
---|---|---|---|
Halley's Comet | 15 × 8 × 8[48][49] | 0.6[55] | 3×1014 |
Tempel 1 | 7.6×4.9[56] | 0.62[53] | 7.9×1013 |
19P/Borrelly | 8×4×4[50] | 0.3[53] | 2×1013 |
81P/Wild | 5.5×4.0×3.3[57] | 0.6[53] | 2.3×1013 |
67P/Churyumov–Gerasimenko | See article on 67P | 0.4[58] | (1.0±0.1)×1013[59] |
Composition
This article needs to be updated.(July 2020) |
It was once thought that water-ice was the predominant constituent of the nucleus.[60] In the dirty snowball model, dust is ejected when the ice retreats.[61] Based on this, about 80% of the Halley's Comet nucleus would be water ice, and frozen carbon monoxide (CO) makes up another 15%. Much of the remainder is frozen carbon dioxide, methane, and ammonia.[48] Scientists think that other comets are chemically similar to Halley's Comet. The nucleus of Halley's Comet is also an extremely dark black. Scientists think that the surface of the comet, and perhaps most other comets, is covered with a black crust of dust and rock that covers most of the ice. These comets release gas only when holes in this crust rotate toward the Sun, exposing the interior ice to the warming sunlight.
This assumption was shown to be naive, starting at Halley. Coma composition does not represent nucleus composition, as activity
The composition of
Organics
Structure
On 67P/Churyumov–Gerasimenko comet, some of the resulting water vapour may escape from the nucleus, but 80% of it recondenses in layers beneath the surface.[73] This observation implies that the thin ice-rich layers exposed close to the surface may be a consequence of cometary activity and evolution, and that global layering does not necessarily occur early in the comet's formation history.[73][74]
Measurements carried out by the Philae lander on 67P/Churyumov–Gerasimenko comet, indicate that the dust layer could be as much as 20 cm (7.9 in) thick. Beneath that is hard ice, or a mixture of ice and dust. Porosity appears to increase toward the center of the comet.[75] While most scientists thought that all the evidence indicated that the structure of nuclei of comets is processed rubble piles of smaller ice planetesimals of a previous generation,[76] the Rosetta mission dispelled the idea that comets are "rubble piles" of disparate material.[77][78][dubious ] The Rosetta mission indicated that comets may be "rubble piles" of disparate material.[79] Data were not conclusive concerning the collisional environment during the formation and right afterwards.[80][81][82]
Splitting
The nucleus of some comets may be fragile, a conclusion supported by the observation of comets splitting apart.
Comets 42P/Neujmin and 53P/Van Biesbroeck appear to be fragments of a parent comet. Numerical integrations have shown that both comets had a rather close approach to Jupiter in January 1850, and that, before 1850, the two orbits were nearly identical.[87]
Albedo
Cometary nuclei are among the darkest objects known to exist in the Solar System. The
Roughly six percent of the
Discovery and exploration
The first relatively close mission to a comet nucleus was space probe
During its flyby, Giotto was hit at least 12,000 times by particles, including a 1-gram fragment that caused a temporary loss of communication with Darmstadt.[90] Halley was calculated to be ejecting three tonnes of material per second[92] from seven jets, causing it to wobble over long time periods.[2] Comet Grigg–Skjellerup's nucleus was visited after Halley, with Giotto approaching 100–200 km.[90]
Results from the
Tempel 1 Deep Impact |
Tempel 1 Stardust |
Borrelly Deep Space 1 |
Wild 2 Stardust |
Hartley 2 Deep Impact |
C-G Rosetta |
Comets already visited are:
- Halley's Comet
- 26P/Grigg-Skjellerup
- Tempel 1 (also hit with impactor)
- 19P/Borrelly
- 81P/Wild
- 103P/Hartley
- C/2013 A1 (Siding Spring) -unplanned encounter with Mars spacecraft
- 67P/Churyumov–Gerasimenko (also landed on)
See also
- Coma (cometary)
- Hypatia (stone)
- List of comets visited by spacecraft
References
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Tempel 1: Using a spherical diameter of 6.25 km; volume of a sphere * a density of 0.62 g/cm3 yields a mass of 7.9E+13 kg.
19P/Borrelly: Using the volume of an ellipsoid of 8x4x4km * a density of 0.3 g/cm3 yields a mass of 2.0E+13 kg.
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External links
- Nucleus of Halley's Comet (15×8×8 km)
- Nucleus of Comet Wild 2 (5.5×4.0×3.3 km)
- International Comet Quarterly: Split Comets
- 67/P by Rosetta2 (ESA)