When the comet Ikeya-Seki curved around the sun last October, many a stargazer's camera was focused on its fiery trail. But two California Institute of Technology researchers were deter mined to record far more than mere surface glow. And the Astrophysical Journal last week reported remarkable success. Eric Becklin, a graduate student in physics, and James Westphal, a senior research fellow in planetary science, not only obtained the first temperature measurements ever made of a comet, they also gained valuable insight into a comet's composition and behavior.
After fitting a 24-inch telescope...
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