DPS Pasadena Meeting 2000, 23-27 October 2000
Session 37. Comets Posters - Orbital Dynamics, Nuclei
Displayed, 1:00pm, Monday - 1:00pm, Friday, Highlighted Thursday, 3:30-6:30pm, C101-C105, C211

[Previous] | [Session 37] | [Next]


[37.07] The Emission of Gas from the Surface of Comets

J. Benkhoff (DLR - Berlin, Germany)

Sublimation of minor gases from ices inside of a porous comet nucleus strongly depends on the chemical and physical parameters of the nucleus. Our main objective is to find a clue to determine conditions in the solar nebula from chemical composition and structure of the nucleus Our model describing the gas and dust flux out of a porous nucleus has been used to study the influence of these parameters on the gas flux. We solve the conservation equations for H2O, CO, CH3OH, HCN, H2S, C3H4, C2H2, C2H6 and other minor abundant components under appropriate boundary conditions. Further, we assume different orientations of the spin axis and take seasons into account. We make some extreme assumptions on the composition and the structure of the nucleus to systematically analyze the resulting dust and gas fluxes. Our results obtained for model comets in the orbit of Hale-Bopp and Wirtanen are in very good agreement with measured data.


The author(s) of this abstract have provided an email address for comments about the abstract: Johannes.Benkhoff@dlr.de


[Previous] | [Session 37] | [Next]