EPOXI

Two intriguing investigations -- One flight-proven spacecraft

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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...

2010-10-27 CN coma
2010-10-27 jets, lightcurve
2010-10-21 lightcurve
2010-10-16 spectrum

103P on...

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