Long-term spectroscopic monitoring of comet 46P/Wirtanen

Abstract

Jupiter family comets, having an orbital period <20 years, allow us to observe their activity and analyze the homogeneity in their coma composition over multiple apparitions. Comet 46P/Wirtanen, with its exceptionally close approach to Earth during its 2018 apparition, offered the possibility for long-term spectroscopic observations. We used a 1.2 m telescope equipped with a low-resolution spectrograph to monitor the comet’s activity and compute the relative abundances in the coma as a function of heliocentric distance. We report the production rates of four molecules CN, C\(_2\), C\(_3\) and NH\(_2,\) and Af\(\rho \) parameter, a proxy to the dust production, before and after perihelion. We found that 46P has a typical coma composition with almost constant abundance ratios with respect to CN across the epochs of observation. Comparing the coma composition of comet 46P during the current and previous apparitions, we conclude the comet has a highly homogeneous chemical composition in the nucleus with an enhancement in ammonia abundance compared to the average abundance in comets.