The changing rotational excitation of C3 in comet 9P/Tempel 1 during Deep Impact

Abstract

The 4050 Å band of C3 was observed with Keck/HIRES echelle spectrometer during the Deep Impact encounter. We perform a 2-dimensional analysis of the exposures in order to study the spatial, spectral, and temporal changes in the emission spectrum of C3. The rotational population distribution changes after impact, beginning with an excitation temperature of ∼45 K at impact and increasing for 2 hr up to a maximum of 61±5 K. From 2 to 4 hours after impact, the excitation temperature decreases to the pre-impact value. We measured the quiescent production rate of C3 before the encounter to be 1.0×1023 s−1, while 2 hours after impact we recorded a peak production rate of 1.7×1023 s−1. Whereas the excitation temperature returned to the pre-impact value during the observations, the production rate remained elevated, decreasing slowly, until the end of the 4 hr observations. These results are interpreted in terms of changing gas densities in the coma and short-term changes in the primary chemical production mechanism for C3.