Distant activity of Comet C/2001 K5 (LINEAR)

Abstract

CCD observations of Comet C/2001 K5 (LINEAR) were made at the 60-cm telescope of the Andrushivka Astronomical Observatory on October 27, 2003. Developed codes for simulation of dust environment in distant comets were applied to fit dust tail of the comet. Model runs are successful under assumption that the dust tail is formed by “dirty” ice grains. The trajectories of the cometary particles were calculated taking into account variation of their mass due to sublimation in the solar radiation field. Outflow velocities of the grains out of the collisional zone are very slow and equal, in particular, to 10.7 m s⁻¹ for particles having a size of 5 μm at a heliocentric distance of 5.9 AU. The dust size distribution of the ejected particles is significantly different from those in the observed tail. The dust size distributions in different parts of the appeared tail vary widely as well.