Cometary Nuclear Magnitudes from Sky Survey Observations

Michael Weiler (1) , Heike Rauer (2) , Christiaan Sterken (3)

1 Section de Meudon
2 DLR Institut für Planetenforschung
3 VUB - Vrije Universiteit Brussel

The determination of the nuclear magnitudes of comets, and with it nuclear size frequency distributions, is strongly complicated by cometary activity. By now, only nuclear size frequency distributions for Jupiter-Family comets are available, and they are still subject of uncertainties. For comets of other dynamical classes, nuclear magnitudes are known for only a few comets. The size frequency distributions are thus not well constrained.

Mots clés: Comets; nucleus

Domaines: Planète et Univers [physics]

Michael Weiler, Heike Rauer, Christiaan Sterken. Cometary Nuclear Magnitudes from Sky Survey Observations. Icarus, 2011, 212 (1), pp.351. ⟨10.1016/j.icarus.2010.12.026⟩. ⟨hal-00725407⟩