• DOI:10.1038/315122A0
• Corpus ID: 4357619

Colour, albedo and nucleus size of Halley's comet

@article{Cruikshank1985ColourAA,
  title={Colour, albedo and nucleus size of Halley's comet},
  author={Dale P. Cruikshank and William K. Hartmann and David J. Tholen},
  journal={Nature},
  year={1985},
  volume={315},
  pages={122-124}
}

• D. Cruikshank, W. Hartmann, D. Tholen
• Published 9 May 1985
• Physics, Geology
• Nature

Halley's comet (1982 i) is now bright enough for broadband photometry by large infrared telescopes1–3. We report here on photometry of the comet in the B (0.44 µm), J (0.55 µm), V (1.25 µm) and K (2.2 µm) broadband filters during a time when the coma was very weak and presumed to contribute negligibly to the broadband photometry. The V – J and J – K colours suggest that the colour of the nucleus of Halley's comet is similar to that of the D-type asteroids, which in turn suggests that the surface of the nucleus is of albedo < 0.1.