Water Brought into Jupiter's Atmosphere by Fragments R and W of Comet SL-9
✍ Scribed by A.L. Sprague; G.L. Bjoraker; D.M. Hunten; F.C. Wittenborn; R.W.H. Kozlowski; D.H. Wooden
- Publisher
- Elsevier Science
- Year
- 1996
- Tongue
- English
- Weight
- 290 KB
- Volume
- 121
- Category
- Article
- ISSN
- 0019-1035
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✦ Synopsis
impacts of the R and W fragments. Observations were made in the wavelength range 4.9-9.4 Ȑm (and 9.3-14.5 Measurements of H 2 O in the impact plumes of the R and W fragments of Comet SL-9 were made from the Kuiper Airborne Ȑm, not discussed here). Emissions at 6.62 and 6.45 Ȑm Observatory. Water emissions peaked ȁ12 min after the impermitted an estimate of both temperature (ȁ1000 K) pacts, and indicate a temperature ȁ1000 K based upon the and H 2 O column abundance. With reasonable assumprelative radiances of two H 2 O emission features at 6.62 and tions about the geometry of the radiating volume, we 6.45 m. Our analysis shows that the water was probably delivderive masses of ȁ10 11 g for R and 60% of this for W, ered by Comet SL-9 and is not of jovian origin, and that the amounts that could easily have been brought in by the C/O ratio in the plume was less than unity. Our calculations, impactors if their composition resembled either a comet which allow for entrainment of jovian air and use a Halleynucleus or a carbonaceous chondrite. Because H 2 O is like composition for the impactor, show that the R fragment contained ice equivalent to a sphere 90 m in diameter. On the readily converted to CO in the fireball, the region emitting further assumption that we only saw 10% of the material, the the H 2 O band must have had a C/O ratio less than diameter of the fragment would be 250 m.