Publications by authors named "Charlotte Goetz"

Article Synopsis
  • The plasma environment around a comet has different regions, including the solar wind ion cavity (lacking solar wind ions) and the diamagnetic cavity (unmagnetized plasma in the inner coma).
  • Recent observations have revealed that protons with solar wind energy can actually be found inside the diamagnetic cavity, which contradicts previous theories that they shouldn't be there.
  • The presence of these protons seems to be connected to specific solar wind conditions, particularly when the solar wind velocity aligns with the interplanetary magnetic field, suggesting a unique interaction between the comet and solar winds under special circumstances.
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Article Synopsis
  • The Comet Interceptor mission aims to explore a long-period comet or an interstellar object entering our Solar System, with a focus on its surface composition, shape, and the composition of its gas and dust.
  • Proposed to the European Space Agency in 2018 and approved in June 2022, it is set to launch in 2029 alongside the Ariel mission, utilizing a low-cost approach that allows it to wait for a suitable target comet.
  • The mission will feature a main probe and two sub-probes (B1 from JAXA and B2), providing simultaneous, detailed 3D information about the comet and its interaction with the solar wind, making it unique compared to previous missions.
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The environment of a comet is a fascinating and unique laboratory to study plasma processes and the formation of structures such as shocks and discontinuities from electron scales to ion scales and above. The European Space Agency's Rosetta mission collected data for more than two years, from the rendezvous with comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko in August 2014 until the final touch-down of the spacecraft end of September 2016. This escort phase spanned a large arc of the comet's orbit around the Sun, including its perihelion and corresponding to heliocentric distances between 3.

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The objective of this White Paper, submitted to ESA's Voyage 2050 call, is to get a more holistic knowledge of the dynamics of the Martian plasma system, from its surface up to the undisturbed solar wind outside of the induced magnetosphere. This can only be achieved with coordinated multi-point observations with high temporal resolution as they have the scientific potential to track the whole dynamics of the system (from small to large scales), and they constitute the next generation of the exploration of Mars analogous to what happened at Earth a few decades ago. This White Paper discusses the key science questions that are still open at Mars and how they could be addressed with coordinated multipoint missions.

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