The Dust in the Coma of Comet Halley

The interstellar dust model of comets is numerically worked out to satisfy several basic constraints provided by observations of comet Halley and to derive the porosity of coma dust. The observational constraints are: (1) the strengths of the 3.4 μm and 9.7 μm emission bands; (2) the relative amount of silicates to organic materials; (3) the mass distribution of the dust. The results indicate that coma dust has a porosity in the range 0.93 < P < 0.975. Preliminary calculations concerning the observed linear polarization of comet Halley are presented.