Scientific Colloquium
April 7, 2006
MICHAEL A'HEARN
UNIVERSITY OF MARYLAND
"Deep Impact: Excavating Comet
Tempel 1"
On 4 July 2005, Deep Impact
delivered 19 Gjoules of kinetic energy to comet 9P/Tempel 1. On
approach, we learned that outbursts by comets are far more common than
previously realized and that they can be associated with regions on the
surface. We can confidently rule out exogenic sources for these
outbursts. The geology of the surface is clearly different from
that of the few other cometary nuclei visited and very puzzling.
There are clearly distinct layers, which are likely not complete
shells. Surface photometric properties are reasonably uniform
except in a few small areas.
The impact itself was oblique. Most ejecta were cold,
slow-moving, few-micron sized particles. After the first second,
the ejecta include small crystals of ordinary ice, indicating
excavation without heating and thus without chemical alteration.
The ejected gases included a large amount of CO2 and a very large
amount of organics in addition to water and species yet
unidentified. The refractory to volatile ratio in the ejecta is
greater than unity but not dramatically so.
The ejecta enable us to determine both the strength of the surface
layers at scales from microscopic to a few hundred meters and the bulk
density of the nucleus, which must be extremely porous.
This talk will present the current state of our rapidly evolving
understanding of comet Tempel 1.