X-Ray Emission from Comet McNaught-Hartley (C/1999 T1)

Comet McNaught–Hartley was observed in five 1-h exposures on January 8–14 2001 using the advanced CCD imaging spectrometer on board the Chandra X-ray Observatory. The X-ray image of the comet does not show a crescent-like shape. The brightest region is offset from the nucleus between the sunward and comet velocity directions. The comet mean X-ray luminosity is equal to 7.8×1015 erg s−1 for photon energy E>150 eV and aperture ρ=1.5×105 km where the comet X-ray brightness exceeds 20% of the peak value. Gas production rate was 1029 s−1 during the observations, and the efficiency of X-ray excitation was equal to 4×10−14 erg AU3/2. Day-to-day variations in X-rays reached a factor of 5. The strongest short-term variation was by a factor of 1.75 for 1600 s. This variation may be explained by a decline in the solar-wind flux by the same factor in ≈800 s. The comet and Earth were seeing different faces of the Sun, and time delay in the solar-wind events on the Earth and the comet was long, equal to 6 days. The best correlation between the comet X-ray luminosity and the solar-wind proton density is for the time delay of 5.5 days and may be explained by the higher velocity of heavy ions. l background subtraction made it possible to extract the comet spectrum from 150 to 1000 eV. No signal was detected at E>1000 eV, and a 3σ upper limit to any emission with E>1000 eV is 0.3% of the photon emission at 150–1000 eV. The best χ2-fit model to the spectrum consists of nine narrow emission features. The emission energies and intensities are in good agreement with a charge exchange spectrum calculated by us for the slow solar wind. Using this spectrum, we identify the observed emissions as (Ne7++Mg7++Mg8+) at 195 eV, (Mg8++Mg9++Si8+) at 250 eV, C5+ at 370 and 460 eV, O6+ at 560 eV, O7+ at 650, 780, and 840 eV, and Ne8+ at 940 eV. X-ray spectroscopy of comets may be used to diagnose the solar-wind composition and its interaction with comets.