Abstract:
Investigations of the dust morphology of comet 81P/Wild 2 in the I- and R-band images obtained on 1997 May 15 from the Vainu Bappu Observatory, Kavalur, India, are presented. We model the trajectories of dust grains ejected from distributed sources on this comet to explain the morphology of the fans in these images and in the published images by Schulz and coworkers. We derive the pole position of αp=297deg+/-5deg and δp=-10deg+/-5deg. Broad sources at +80deg+/-5deg and -25deg+/-5deg latitudes best explain the northern and southern fans, respectively.
