The Rosetta spacecraft spent ~2 years orbiting comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko, most of it at distances that allowed surface characterization and monitoring at submeter scales. From December 2014 to June 2016, numerous localized changes were observed, which we attribute to cometary-specific weathering, erosion, and transient events driven by exposure to sunlight and other processes. While the localized changes suggest compositional or physical heterogeneity, their scale has not resulted in substantial alterations to the comet's landscape. This suggests that most of the major landforms were created early in the comet's current orbital configuration. They may even date from earlier if the comet had a larger volatile inventory, particularly of CO or CO ices, or contained amorphous ice, which could have triggered activity at greater distances from the Sun.
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Geometric preprocessing for measurements of comet 67P acquired by Rosetta's Visible and InfraRed Thermal Imaging Spectrometer, Mapping channel (VIRTIS-M).
Rev Sci Instrum
December 2024
Institute of Planetary Research, German Aerospace Center (DLR), Rutherfordstr. 2, 12489 Berlin, Germany.
Comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko (hereafter 67P) was the primary target of ESA's Rosetta mission. Hyperspectral images acquired by the Mapping channel of the Visible and InfraRed Thermal Imaging Spectrometer aboard Rosetta can be used to derive physical and compositional surface properties by detailed spectrophotometric analyses. This calls for a precise spatial co-registration between measurements and geometry information.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFA nearly terrestrial D/H for comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko.
Sci Adv
November 2024
Laboratory for Astrophysics and Space Physics, University of Colorado, Boulder, CO 80303, USA.
Cometary comae are a mixture of gas and ice-covered dust. Processing on the surface and in the coma change the composition of ice on dust grains relative to that of the nucleus. As the ice on dust grains sublimates, the local coma composition changes.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFCorrection of instrument temperature dependence of detector responsivity for measurements of comet 67P acquired by Rosetta's Visible and InfraRed Thermal Imaging Spectrometer, Mapping channel (VIRTIS-M).
Rev Sci Instrum
October 2024
Institute of Planetary Research, German Aerospace Center (DLR), Rutherfordstr. 2, 12489 Berlin, Germany.
Article Synopsis
- - The VIRTIS-M instrument on the Rosetta spacecraft collected hyperspectral images of comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko, with the VIS channel detector's responsivity influenced by its temperature (TVIS).
- - Analyzed data showed that a 1 K increase in TVIS resulted in varying percentage increases in measured spectral values, which affects the accuracy of the spectra recorded.
- - A new parameterization was developed to correct for this temperature-related bias, ensuring consistency in the spectral data across the mission and enhancing future analyses.
Ulysses spacecraft detections of cometary dust trails.
Philos Trans A Math Phys Eng Sci
June 2024
Max-Planck-Institut für Kernphysik , Heidelberg, Germany.
The Ulysses spacecraft was launched in 1990 and, after a Jupiter swing-by in 1992, became the first interplanetary spacecraft orbiting the Sun on a highly inclined trajectory with an inclination of [Formula: see text]. The spacecraft was equipped with an impact ionization dust detector which provided 17 years of dust measurements in interplanetary space from 1990 to 2007. Cometary meteoroid streams (also referred to as trails) exist along the orbits of comets, forming fine structures of the interplanetary dust cloud.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFArticle 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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