DPS Pasadena Meeting 2000, 23-27 October 2000
Session 36. Comets: Orbital Dynamics, Nuclei
Oral, Chairs: H. Weaver, H. Levison, Wednesday, 2000/10/25, 4:00-6:00pm, Little Theater (C107)

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[36.07] Comet LINEAR C/1999 S4 - an absolutely well-behaved comet before breakup

S.B. Peschke (VILSPA/ESA), C.M. Lisse (STScI), Y.R. Fernandez (UH-IfA), M. Ressler (NASA/JPL), M. Stickel (MPIA), C. Kaminski, B. Golish (NASA/IRTF)

We present results from infrared imaging of comet LINEAR C/1999 S4 on June 17 - 19, 2000 (pre-breakup), using the near-IR camera NSFCAM and the mid-IR camera MIRLIN at the 3m NASA/IRTF. Images and multi-wavelength spectroscopy were obtained in the zJHK'L'MNQ bands, and were used to create a 1.0 - 25 \mum SED of the comet's dust and nucleus. The coma's contribution at each wavelength was modeled using spatial fitting (Fernandez 1999, PhD thesis; Lisse et al. 1999, Icarus 140, 189). The resulting comatic and nuclear SEDs were then modeled using modified Mie theory (Lisse et al. 1998, ApJ 496, 971) and the standard nuclear thermal models (Lebofsky and Spencer 1989, Asteroids II, 128), respectively. We report the resulting dust PSD, mass loss rate, and albedo, as well as the nuclear radius, and we compare these results to those obtained by others from optical data both before and after the comet's breakup in late July 2000.



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