Rotation Period of the Nucleus of the Comet Halley
J. Kelemen (Konkoly Observatory)
After analyzing the VEGA-1 and VEGA-2 images of the comet Halley I was able to construct the intensity maps of the dust jets around the nucleus for the times of the pre and post encounter and the nearest encounter periods for both spacecrafts. Starting from this intensity maps the time variation of some arbitrary 'active longitudes' were plotted. The plots are showing intensity variations which can be interpreted as the effect of the rotation of the nucleus. The best fit sine curves are showing a period of very near to 7 days. A good agreement to the previous vaguely confirmed estimations. On the basis of this results I can conclude that the real rotation period of the comet Halley is about 7 days.