Müller, Michael; Green, Simon F. and McBride, Neil
|DOI (Digital Object Identifier) Link:||http://dx.doi.org/10.1023/A:1021568502723|
|Google Scholar:||Look up in Google Scholar|
We define a procedure which allows estimation of the optical thickness of a cometary dust coma and the ambient illumination of the nucleus for any given comet, if estimates of the nucleus radius and the dust activity (Afρ) are available. The calculation is performed for a singly scattering coma with a cos(ϑ) distribution of dust over its day side. We find that the ambient illumination is of the same order as the incident sunlight if the optical thickness is of order one. The optical thickness increases, all else equal, linearly with the nucleus radius. Therefore the effect of the presence of the coma may be neglected for small (≈ 1 km diameter) comets, but is important for comets such as 1P/Halley and Hale–Bopp.
|Item Type:||Journal Article|
|Keywords:||comets; dust; optical thickness; radiative transfer|
|Academic Unit/Department:||Science > Physical Sciences
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|Interdisciplinary Research Centre:||Centre for Earth, Planetary, Space and Astronomical Research (CEPSAR)|
|Depositing User:||Users 6044 not found.|
|Date Deposited:||14 Jul 2006|
|Last Modified:||31 Jul 2012 10:31|
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