DIRBE Comet Trails

Abstract

Re-examination of the COBE DIRBE data reveals the thermal emission of several comet dust trails. The dust trails of 1P/Halley, 169P/NEAT, and 3200 Phaethon have not been previously reported. The known trails of 2P/Encke, and 73P/Schwassmann-Wachmann 3 are also seen. The dust trails have 12 and 25 micron surface brightnesses of <0.1 and <0.15 MJy/sr, respectively, which is <1% of the zodiacal light intensity. The trails are very difficult to see in any single daily image of the sky, but are evident as rapidly moving linear features in movies of the DIRBE data. Some trails are clearest when crossing through the orbital plane of the parent comet, but others are best seen at high ecliptic latitudes as the Earth passes over or under the dust trail. All these comets have known associations with meteor showers. This re-examination also reveals one additional comet and 13 additional asteroids that had not previously been recognized in the DIRBE data.

11 pages. Accepted for publication in AJ. The movies (which will appear in the AJ) are not included here

References in corpus (12)

• The COBE Diffuse Infrared Background Experiment Search for the Cosmic Infrared Background: I. Limits and Detections
• The COBE Diffuse Infrared Background Experiment Search for the Cosmic Infrared Background: II. Model of the Interplanetary Dust Cloud
• Angular Power Spectra of the COBE DIRBE Maps
• The Dust Tail of Asteroid (3200) Phaethon
• An improved model for the infrared emission from the zodiacal dust cloud: cometary, asteroidal and interstellar dust
• Recurrent Perihelion Activity in (3200) Phaethon
• A survey of debris trails from short-period comets
• The COBE DIRBE Point Source Catalog
• Representations of spectral coordinates in FITS
• Distribution and properties of fragments and debris from the split comet 73P/Schwassmann-Wachmann 3 as revealed by Spitzer Space Telescope
• Preliminary Analysis of SOHO/STEREO Observations of Sungrazing Comet ISON (C/2012 S1) Around Perihelion
• Dynamical Zodiacal Cloud Models Constrained by High Resolution Spectroscopy of the Zodiacal Light (Icarus, in press)

Cited by in corpus (11)

• Near-Earth asteroid (3200) Phaethon. Characterization of its orbit, spin state, and thermophysical parameters
• Parker Solar Probe Observations of a Dust Trail in the Orbit of (3200) Phaethon
• Reconstructing emission from pre-reionization sources with cosmic infrared background fluctuation measurements by the JWST
• Hubble Space Telescope Observations of 3200 Phaethon At Closest Approach
• SKYSURF: Constraints on Zodiacal Light and Extragalactic Background Light through Panchromatic HST All-Sky Surface-Brightness Measurements: II. First Limits on Diffuse Light at 1.25, 1.4, and 1.6 microns
• Continued PSP/WISPR Observations of a Phaethon-related Dust Trail
• Helios spacecraft data revisited: Detection of cometary meteoroid trails by in-situ dust impacts
• Perihelion Activity of (3200) Phaethon Is Not Dusty: Evidence from STEREO/COR2 Observations
• Modelling cometary meteoroid stream traverses of the Martian Moons eXploration (MMX) spacecraft en route to Phobos
• WISE/NEOWISE Multi-Epoch Imaging of the Potentially Geminid-related Asteroids: (3200) Phaethon, 2005 UD and 1999 YC
• Search for Dust Emission from (24) Themis Using the Gemini-North Telescope