Millimeter Continuum Observations of Parent Comets of Meteor Storms

Abstract

The 2 millimeter continuum observations of parent comets of meteor storms, P/Tempel-Tuttle and P/Giacobini-Zinner, were made with a bolometer array installed on the 45 m radio telescope at the Nobeyama Radio Observatory. P/Tempel-Tuttle was observed on 1998 January 16, near its closest approach to the earth, and P/Giacobini-Zinner was observed on 1998 November 5 and 8. The maps obtained showed no signal from these comets greater than 12.0 mJy for P/Tempel-Tuttle and 17.4 mJy for P/Giacobini-Zinner (3 σ). Using the same assumptions as Jewitt & Mathews, we estimated that the mass upper limits in the 12'' beam were 7.5 × 109 kg and 6.2 × 1010 kg for P/Tempel-Tuttle and P/Giacobini-Zinner, respectively.