An experimental study of the formation of an ice crust and migration of water vapor in a cometʹs upper layers

From recent close encounters with Comets Wild-2 and Tempel 1 we learned that their surfaces are very rugged and no simple uniform layers model can be applied to them. Rather, a glaciological approach should be applied for describing their surface features and behavior. Such intrinsically rugged surface is formed in our large scale experiments, where an agglomerate of ∼200 μm gas-laden amorphous ice particles is accumulated to form a 20 cm diameter and few cm high ice sample. The density, tensile strength and thermal inertia of our ice sample were found to be very close to those found by Deep Impact for Comet Tempel 1: density 250–300 kg m−3 vs DI 350–400 kg m−3; tensile strength 2–4 kPa vs DI 1–10 kPa; thermal inertia 80 W K−1 m−2 s1/2 vs <100 W K−1 m−2 s1/2 and <50 W K−1 m−2 s1/2. From the close agreement between the thermal inertias measured in our ice sample, which had no dust coverage and that of Comet Tempel 1, we deduce that the low thermal inertia is an intrinsic property of the fluffy structure of the ice as a result of its low density, with an addition by the broken terrain and not due to the formation of a dust layer. Upon warming up of the ice, water vapor migrates both outward into the coma and inward. Reaching cooler layers, the water vapor condenses, forming a denser ice crust, as we show experimentally. We also demonstrate the inward and outward flow of water vapor in the outer ice layers through the exchange between layers of D2O ice and H2O ice, to form HDO.