| Issue |
A&A
Volume 704, December 2025
|
|
|---|---|---|
| Article Number | A124 | |
| Number of page(s) | 10 | |
| Section | Planets, planetary systems, and small bodies | |
| DOI | https://doi.org/10.1051/0004-6361/202556433 | |
| Published online | 09 December 2025 | |
Orientation of the rotation axis and the location of water-ice sublimation activity of the main-belt comet 313P/Gibbs
1
School of Aeronautics and Astronautics, Shenzhen Campus of Sun Yat-sen University,
Shenzhen,
Guangdong 518107,
China
2
Shenzhen Key Laboratory of Intelligent Microsatellite Constellation, Shenzhen Campus of Sun Yat-sen University,
Shenzhen,
Guangdong 518107,
China
3
State Key Laboratory of Lunar and Planetary Sciences, Macau University of Science and Technology,
Taipa,
Macau 999078,
PR China
4
National Key Laboratory of Materials Behavior and Evaluation Technology in Space Environments, Lanzhou Institute of Physics,
Lanzhou
730000,
China
5
State Key Laboratory of Atmospheric Environment and Extreme Meteorology, Institute of Atmospheric Physics, Chinese Academy of Sciences,
Beijing
100029,
China
★ Corresponding author: liuxd36@mail.sysu.edu.cn
Received:
16
July
2025
Accepted:
24
October
2025
Context. The dust ejection activity of main-belt comet 313P/Gibbs is driven by water-ice sublimation, and the distribution of water-ice sublimation activity is nonuniform around perihelion, which may be related to seasonal modulation driven by the orientation of the rotation axis.
Aims. We aim to estimate the orientation of the rotation axis of 313P and the location of water-ice sublimation on the surface of the nucleus.
Methods. We used a thermophysical model of the nucleus to calculate its surface temperature distribution under various orientations of the rotation axis, aiming to identify the orientation that best matches the observational data. The position of water-ice sublimation on the surface of the cometary nucleus was estimated by fitting the simulated full width at half maximum of the dust tail to the observed data.
Results. The water-ice sublimation rate of 313P is estimated to be about QH2O ≈ 4.2 × 1020 molecules m−2 s−1 (corresponding to 1.3 × 10−5 kg m−2 s−1). The spin vector of the rotation axis of 313P is located approximately at an ecliptic longitude of 70° with an ecliptic latitude in the range of [0°, 25°], or at an ecliptic longitude of 250° with an ecliptic latitude in the range of [0°, 45°]. The local latitude of water-ice sublimation activity on the surface of the nucleus is 50° (corresponding to an ecliptic longitude of the rotation axis of 70°) or −53° (corresponding to an ecliptic longitude of the rotation axis of 250°).
Key words: methods: numerical / comets: general / minor planets, asteroids: general / comets: individual: 313P/Gibbs
© The Authors 2025
Open Access article, published by EDP Sciences, under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
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