NASA NTRS · 20170000988
Catastrophic Disruption of Comet ISON
Abstract
We report submillimeter 450 and 850 microns dust continuum observations for comet C/2012 S1 (ISON) obtained at heliocentric distances 0.31-0.08 au prior to perihelion on 2013 November 28 (rh=0.0125 au). These observations reveal a rapidly varying dust environment in which the dust emission was initially point-like. As ISON approached perihelion, the continuum emission became an elongated dust column spread out over as much as 60″ (greater than 10(exp 5) km in the anti-solar direction. Deconvolution of the November 28.04 850 microns image reveals numerous distinct clumps consistent with the catastrophic disruption of comet ISON, producing approximately 5.2×10(exp 10) kg of submillimeter-sized dust. Orbital computations suggest that the SCUBA-2 emission peak coincides with the cometʼs residual nucleus.
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Keane, Jacqueline V., Milam, Stefanie N., Coulson, Iain M., Kleyna, Jan T., Sekanina, Zdenek, Kracht, Rainer, Riesen, Timm-Emmanuel, Meech, Karen J., Charnley, Steven B.. 2016-11-09. Catastrophic Disruption of Comet ISON. https://ntrs.nasa.gov/citations/20170000988
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