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Dynamics and chemistry of SL9 plumes

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  12 September 2009

Kevin Zahnle
Affiliation:
NASA Ames Research Center, M.S. 245–3, Moffett Field, California 94035-1000, USA
Keith S. Noll
Affiliation:
Space Telescope Science Institute, Baltimore
Harold A. Weaver
Affiliation:
Applied Research Corporation, Landover, Maryland
Paul D. Feldman
Affiliation:
The Johns Hopkins University
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Summary

The SL9 impacts are known by their plumes. Several of these were imaged by HST towering 3000 km above Jupiter's limb. The heat released when they fell produced the famous infrared main events. The reentry shocks must have been significantly hotter than the observed color temperature would imply, which indicates that the shocks were radiatively cooled, and that most of the energy released on reentry was radiated. This allows us to use the infrared luminosities of the main event to estimate the energy of the impacts; we find that the R impact released some 0.3 − 1 × 1027 ergs. Shock chemistry generates a suite of molecules not usually seen on Jupiter. The chemistry reflects a wide range of different shock temperatures, pressures, and gas compositions. The primary product, apart from H2, is CO, the yield of which depends only weakly on the comet's composition, and so can be used to weigh the comet. Abundant water and S2 are consistent with a somewhat oxidized gas (presumably the comet itself), but the absence of SO2 and CO2 shows that conditions were neither too oxidizing nor the shocks too hot. Meanwhile, production of CS, CS2, and HCN appears to require a source in dry jovian air; i.e., the airbursts occurred above the jovian water table. Tidal disruption calculations and models of the infrared light curves agree on an average fragment diameter of about half a kilometer.

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Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 1996

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  • Dynamics and chemistry of SL9 plumes
    • By Kevin Zahnle, NASA Ames Research Center, M.S. 245–3, Moffett Field, California 94035-1000, USA
  • Edited by Keith S. Noll, Space Telescope Science Institute, Baltimore, Harold A. Weaver, Applied Research Corporation, Landover, Maryland, Paul D. Feldman, The Johns Hopkins University
  • Book: The Collision of Comet Shoemaker-Levy 9 and Jupiter
  • Online publication: 12 September 2009
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9780511525056.011
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  • Dynamics and chemistry of SL9 plumes
    • By Kevin Zahnle, NASA Ames Research Center, M.S. 245–3, Moffett Field, California 94035-1000, USA
  • Edited by Keith S. Noll, Space Telescope Science Institute, Baltimore, Harold A. Weaver, Applied Research Corporation, Landover, Maryland, Paul D. Feldman, The Johns Hopkins University
  • Book: The Collision of Comet Shoemaker-Levy 9 and Jupiter
  • Online publication: 12 September 2009
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9780511525056.011
Available formats
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Save book to Google Drive

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.

  • Dynamics and chemistry of SL9 plumes
    • By Kevin Zahnle, NASA Ames Research Center, M.S. 245–3, Moffett Field, California 94035-1000, USA
  • Edited by Keith S. Noll, Space Telescope Science Institute, Baltimore, Harold A. Weaver, Applied Research Corporation, Landover, Maryland, Paul D. Feldman, The Johns Hopkins University
  • Book: The Collision of Comet Shoemaker-Levy 9 and Jupiter
  • Online publication: 12 September 2009
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9780511525056.011
Available formats
×