X-ray Emission From Comet 73P/Schwassmann-Wachman 3C Measured With The Swift XRT And The Suzaku XIS
Abstract
The Suzaku XIS and the Swift XRT have been used to observe the X-ray emission from the comet 73P/Schwassmann-Wachmann 3C. The comet was observed during May and June of 2006, while it was near perihelion and passed within 0.1 AU of the Earth. Both the XIS and XRT spectra show line emission from highly charged oxygen and carbon ions. This line emission is caused by charge exchange recombination between solar wind ions and cometary neutrals, and can be used as a diagnostic of the solar wind. An overview of the observation along with the Suzaku/XIS and Swift/XRT spectra will be presented. We wil also present preliminary results from Suzaku observations of comet 8P/Tuttle from January, 2008.
Part of this work was performed under the auspices of the U. S. Department of Energy by Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory under Contract DE-AC52-07NA27344 and is also supported by NASA grants to LLNL.- Publication:
-
AAS/High Energy Astrophysics Division #10
- Pub Date:
- March 2008
- Bibcode:
- 2008HEAD...10.0802B