[en] The collision of Deep Impact with comet 9P/Tempel 1 generated a bright cloud of dust which dissipated during several days after the impact. The brightness variations of this cloud and the changes of its position and shape are governed by the physical properties of the dust grains. We use a Monte Carlo model to describe the evolution of the post-impact dust plume. The results of our dynamical simulations are compared to the data obtained with FORS2, the FOcal Reducer and low dispersion Spectrograph for the VLT of the European Southern Observatory (ESO), to derive the particle size distribution and the total amount of material contained in the dust ejecta cloud.
Disciplines :
Space science, astronomy & astrophysics
Author, co-author :
Bonev, Tanyu
Ageorges, Nancy
Bagnulo, Stefano
Barrera, Luis
Boehnhardt
Hainaut, Olivier
Jehin, Emmanuel ; Université de Liège - ULiège > Département d'astrophys., géophysique et océanographie (AGO) > Astrophysique et traitement de l'image
Kaufl
Kerber, Florian
LoCurto, Gaspare
Manfroid, Jean ; Université de Liège - ULiège > Département d'astrophys., géophysique et océanographie (AGO) > Département d'astrophys., géophysique et océanographie (AGO)
3554
8 pages, 4 JPEG figures, to appear in the proceedings of "Deep Impact as a World Observatory Event - Synergies in Space, Time and Wavelength", ed. Hans Ulrich K{\"a}ufl and Chris Sterken, Springer