Water Production of Comet C/1999 S4 (LINEAR) Observed with the SWAN Instrument

International audienceThe SWAN (Solar Wind ANisotropies) Lyman-alpha all-sky camera on the SOHO spacecraft observed the hydrogen coma of comet C/1999 S4 (LINEAR) from the end of May through mid-August 2000. A systematic set of water-production rates was obtained for this well-documented event of complete fragmentation of a cometary nucleus. The observations indicate that the lower limit for the sunlit surface area of the nucleus was about 1 square kilometer before the fragmentation and that the amount of water released throughout the observing period was 3.3 × 10 9 kilograms. Evidence suggests that the activity of the comet was dominated by successive fragmentation. There were four major outbursts, occurring about every 16 days. The 21 July event led to the complete fragmentation and sublimation of what remained of the nucleus, producing the last 3 × 10 8 kilograms of water. A model where the fragment size distribution follows the power law N ( R ) ∼ R − 2.7 , where N and R are the number and radius of fragments, reproduces the observed dissipation. This distribution possibly reflects the internal structure of the nucleus

Water production rates from SOHO/SWAN observations of comets C/2020 S3 (Erasmus), C/2021 A1 (Leonard) and C/2021 O3 (PanSTARRS)

International audienceIn 2021 and 2022 the hydrogen comae of three long period comets, C/2020 S3 (Erasmus), C/2021 A1 (Leonard) and C/2021 O3 (PanSTARRS) were observed with the Solar Wind ANisotropies (SWAN) all-sky hydrogen Lyman-alpha camera on the SOlar and Heliosphere Observer (SOHO) satellite. SWAN obtains nearly daily full-sky images of the hydrogen Lyman-α distribution of the interstellar hydrogen as it passes through the solar system yielding information about the solar wind and solar ultraviolet fluxes that eats away at it by ionization and charge exchange. The hydrogen comae of comets, when of sufficient brightness, are also observed. Water production rates have been calculated over time for each of these comets. Of particular interest are comet C/2021 O3 (PanSTARRS) which apparently disintegrated a few days before its perihelion at 0.28 au and C/2021 A1 (Leonard) which also disintegrated beginning about 20 days after its perihelion peak. The behavior of comet C/2020 S3 (Erasmus) was more typical without dramatic fading, but still was asymmetric about perihelion, with a more rapid turn on before perihelion and more extended activity well after perihelion

Quantitative Response of IMS Detector for Mixtures Containing Two Active Components

This study describes the relationship between the output signal of the ion mobility spectrometry (IMS) detector and the concentrations of two compounds being simultaneously introduced into the reaction section. Investigations were performed for three pairs of compounds, that is, dimethyl methylphosphonate (DMMP) and acetone, methyl <i>tert</i>-butyl ether (MTBE), and acetone, as well as trimethylamine (TMA) and <i>n</i>-nonylamine (NA). Vapors of the investigated compounds were produced in a two-channel generator with permeation sources and a dilution system based on mass-flow controllers. The generator design and the method of concentration determination are discussed in this paper. It was found that admixture can differently influence detection of an analyte. The presence of acetone does not effect the signal corresponding to dimer ions of DMMP. For pairs MTBE + acetone and TMA + NA characteristic peaks of analyte ions diminish with growing concentration of admixture, however, the detection based on the peak of the asymmetric dimer containing proton-bound molecules of both compounds is effective. For the detection of TMA in the presence of NA, the signal generated by the asymmetric dimer ions is meaningfully higher than the signals of monomer or dimer TMA ions measured without the NA admixture. The course of calibration dependencies was analyzed on the basis of a simple mathematical model of the reaction region. This model provided an estimation of the intensity of the signal for a given ionic species for definite concentration of analyte