Dr. Marco Fulle

INAF – OATs, Italy

v torek, 19. novembra 2013, ob 12h v F3

On November 28, 2013, Comet ISON C/2012S1 will pass its perihelion at a distance of about 10^6 km (less than the Sun’s diameter) from Sun’s surface. In the following week, it is expected to be one of the brightest comets of past decades, possibly brighter than Comet McNaught C/2006P1 or even Comet Ikeya-Seki C/1965S1, the brightest comets of the past century with a perihelion closer than Mercury’s Sun distance. After an introduction to comets, I will explain some of the peculiar phenomena that comets show at these close distances from our star, which allow us to glimpse the metal composition of comet nuclei and the chemistry occurring at high temperature on the surface of dust grains ejected by the comet nucleus.