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103P detected in the IR on 2010-10-16

IR detection of Hartley 2.

Caption: 103P/Hartley 2 has been detected with the High Resolution Instrument's infrared spectrometer (HRI-IR). The spectral data from October 16, 2010, show emissions above the noise level from water (H2O at 2.7 microns) and carbon dioxide (CO2 at 4.26 microns), two abundant volatiles found in comets and their comae. The spectrum also shows a slight upturn in the continuum from 2 to 5 microns. This is caused by the thermal emission of the nucleus. The spectrum is a smoothed average of 5 dark subtracted exposures, 1 from each of 5 consecutive scans acquired within 2.5 hours of each other starting at 16:40 (UT). We are currently sampling the comet with the spectrometer every 30 minutes for 16 hours per day.

Technical Details

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Image Parameter Details
Spacecraft: Deep Impact Flyby
Instrument: HRI Spectrometer
Mid-exposure Date/Time (UTC): 2010/10/16

Table 1: Data about image.

Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/UMD

103P spectra, lightcurves...

103P on...

 

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