Thermal Balance and Water Ice Sublimation on the Surface of Hyperactive
Comet 103P/Hartley2
Abstract
Hyperactive comets have attracted attention due to their high water
production rate with an unclear mechanism, though some hypotheses are
proposed to explain it. Based on the thermal theories of the comet
nuclei, this paper studied a comet surface thermal model considering the
sublimation of H2O. In this paper, a method for solving
the sublimation rate of water ice by infrared spectra is proposed. The
method adopts the assumption of comet nucleus surface temperature
roughness and uses the numerical solution of the Fredholm equation. We
use the HRI-IR spectra (1.05-4.8 μm) data by EPOXI to analyze the pixel
water sublimation rate of hyperactive comet 103P/Hartley2. The results
show that the sublimation exists in most areas of the surface with or
without surface roughness, and most of the water production rate (70%
~ 90%) may come from the comet nucleus. According to
the sublimation law, it is estimated that the sublimation temperature of
water ice on 103P is above 180K. If the dust-to-ice volume ratio is 3:1,
the sublimation temperature is about 200-210K, which indicates that the
water ice may sublimate underneath. This may explain why exposed water
ice on the surface cannot be observed while the active fraction of this
comet is up to 100%.