1. Are cometary dust Mars loss rates deduced from optical emissions reliable?
- Creator:
- Crifo, J. F.
- Format:
- bez média and svazek
- Type:
- model:article and TEXT
- Subject:
- astrophysics, Comet Halley, and cometary dust
- Language:
- Czech
- Description:
- We present additional evidence in support of our prevlous work (Crifo, 1987 bc) in which, from theoretical fits to Comet Halley near -to far- infrared emissions, based on the in-situ flyby probes data, we estimated that the comet was losing half or more of its mass under the form of large (> 1 gram) grains of small (0.3 g cm-^3) density. We confirm that the comet dust-to-gas mass loss rate ratio lies somewhere between the values 0.80 and 18.6, with a best estimate at 3.46. We discuss this result in the context of the general agreement that comets loose less than half of their total mass loss in dust, and this dominantly at very smáli grain sizes. We trace this agreement back to overconfidence placed in a model size distribution which inherently excludes substantial mass loss in large grains without appropriate experimental justification.
- Rights:
- http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/mark/1.0/ and policy:public