comets are believed to retain most of the original content of the pristine solar nebula. therefore, their study provides a unique way to understand the history of our solar system and its relation to the interstellar medium. only periodic comets with gas production rates of at most a few 10e28 h2o molecules s-1 could be proposed in the central program. we may expect the appearance of much brighter new comets during iso life time. we propose to observe these unexpected, bright comets as targets of opportunity. the primary goals are the same: to investigate the dust and gas compositions of these objects, to probe the molecular excitation mechanisms and the coma physical conditions, to monitor the cometary activity and outgassing processes as a function of heliocentric distance, to compare the behaviour of different objects. however, performing this study on much brighter objects than the relatively faint periodic comets of the central program will allow us to obtain a higher scientific return. we propose: 1) to observe reference spectra with the lws and sws. 2) to map molecular and dust emission with cam. 3) to secure low resolution spectra with pht at different heliocentric distances.
Instrument
LWS01 , PHT40 , SWS06
Temporal Coverage
1996-04-27T14:17:52Z/1996-10-10T16:59:20Z
Version
1.0
Mission Description
The Infrared Space Observatory (ISO) was the world's first true orbiting infrared observatory. Equipped with four highly-sophisticated and versatile scientific instruments, it was launched by Ariane in November 1995 and provided astronomers world-wide with a facility of unprecedented sensitivity and capabilities for a detailed exploration of the Universe at infrared wavelengths.
