NSF Award
9322121
9322121 Chapman Dr. Chapman and his colleagues will carry out an integrated theoretical and observational research program to understand the size distribution of the fragments of Comet Shoemaker-Levy 9. The impacts of comet fragments onto Jupiter provide a unique opportunity to search, observationally, for smaller fragments in the size range tens to hundreds of meters. These investigators will use CCD photometry of reflected light from the bolide and fireball phases as measured on the inner Galilean satellites. They expect to detect events due to impactors several hundred meters in diameter, and perhaps down to several tens of meters. Theoretically the group plans to study whether the visible size distribution of fragments represents the primordial size distribution of cometesimals, reflecting cosmogenic processes, or instead reflects attributes of the tidal disruption process itself.
