Kinetic, Latent and Radiative Shares of the Energy Budget of Coma Outgassing

This paper examines how the sunlight intercepted by a comet nucleus is divided among sublimation, gas motion and reradiation. Using only published input values and transparent formulae, the calculation obtains the following headline results: Q_molecules_s = 1e+28; mass_rate_kg_s = 299.1; kinetic_power_W = 9.57e+07. The mass rate is about three hundred kilograms per second. The method, inputs and limitations behind the study of how the sunlight intercepted by a comet nucleus is divided among sublimation, gas motion and reradiation are stated in full so that any reader can reproduce or rescale every number from the deposited calculation script. Agreement and disagreement with independent published estimates are reported at their actual size, and the conclusions are limited to what the budget arithmetic for a two-kilometre nucleus at 1 AU releasing ten to the twenty-eighth molecules per second supports.