32 research outputs found
Planetary astronomy
The authors profile the field of astronomy, identify some of the key scientific questions that can be addressed during the decade of the 1990's, and recommend several facilities that are critically important for answering these questions. Scientific opportunities for the 1990' are discussed. Areas discussed include protoplanetary disks, an inventory of the solar system, primitive material in the solar system, the dynamics of planetary atmospheres, planetary rings and ring dynamics, the composition and structure of the atmospheres of giant planets, the volcanoes of IO, and the mineralogy of the Martian surface. Critical technology developments, proposed projects and facilities, and recommendations for research and facilities are discussed
SOFIA FORCAST Far-IR Photometry of Comet ISON and Constraints on the Coma Grain Size Distribution
Comet C/2012 S1 (ISON) was unique in that it was a dynamically new comet derived from the nearly isotropic Oort cloud reservoir of comets with a sun-grazing orbit. Infrared (IR) observations were executed on NASA's Stratospheric Observatory For Infrared Astronomy (SOFIA) by the FORCAST instrument on 2013 October 25 UT (r(sub h)=1.18 AU, Delta=1.5AU). Photometry was obtained in FORCAST filters centered at 11.1, 19.7, and 31.5 micron. The observations compliment a large world-wide effort to observe and characterize comet ISON