Mapping of the cometary plasma density around comet CG/67P at perihelion.

Pierre Henri (1) , Anders Eriksson (2) , Niklas Edberg (2) , Christian Béghin (1) , Pierrette Décréau (1) , Réjean Grard (3) , Michel Hamelin (4) , Erik Johansson (1, 2) , Jean-Pierre Lebreton (1) , Christian Mazelle (5) , Elias Odelstad (2) , Orélien Randriamboarison (1) , Walter Schmidt (6) , Gaëtan Wattieaux (7) , Daniel Winterhalter (8) , Xavier Vallières (1) , Erik Vigren (2) , Karl-Heinz Glassmeier (9) , Charlotte Goetz (9) , Christoph Koenders (9) , Ingo Richter (9) , Martin Volwerk (10) , James Burch (11) , Thomas Broiles (11) , Ray Golstein (11) , Kathleen Mandt (11) , Prachet Mokashi (11) , Hans Nilsson (2) , Gabriella Sternberg Wieser (2) , Chris Carr (12) , Emanuele Cupido (12) , Marina Galand (13) , Lorenzo Matteini (13) , Zoltan Nemeth (14) , Karoly Szego (14) , C. Vallat (15) , Steven Schwartz (13)

1 LPC2E - Laboratoire de Physique et Chimie de l'Environnement et de l'Espace
2 IRF - Swedish Institute of Space Physics [Uppsala]
3 RSSD - Research and Scientific Support Department, ESTEC
4 PLANETO - LATMOS
5 CESR - Centre d'étude spatiale des rayonnements
6 FMI - Finnish Meteorological Institute
7 LAPLACE-PRHE - Plasmas Réactifs Hors Equilibre
8 JPL - Jet Propulsion Laboratory
9 Technische Universität Braunschweig = Technical University of Braunschweig [Braunschweig]
10 OeAW - Austrian Academy of Sciences
11 SwRI - Southwest Research Institute [San Antonio]
12 Blackett Laboratory
13 Imperial College London
14 Wigner Research Centre for Physics [Budapest]
15 ESAC - European Space Astronomy Centre

In August 2015, comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko, target of the ESA’s Rosetta mission, reached its perihelion at 1.3 AU from the Sun. The Rosetta Plasma Consortium (RPC) onboard the Rosetta spacecraft offers a unique opportunity to analyze the plasma environment during this period. Combining observations from the Mutual Impedance probe (RPC-MIP) and the Langmuir probes (RPC-LAP), we estimate the cometary plasma density. We will present its spatial distribution around the comet when close to perihelion. Combined Mutual impedance and Langmuir probes density measurements are also compared to the density derived from particle measurements (RPC-ICA and RPC-IES). In addition, we will focus on localised, strong variations of the cometary plasma density over short timescales (~ minutes to seconds) observed during this period. These strong plasma density enhancements are interpreted taken into account the electron energy spectrum measured by the Ion and Electron Spectrometer (RPC-IES). Possible correlations of these plasma enhancements with variations in the magnetic field direction measured from the Magnetometer (RPC-MAG) will be discussed.

Domains: Earth and Planetary Astrophysics [astro-ph.EP]; Solar and Stellar Astrophysics [astro-ph.SR]; Instrumentation and Methods for Astrophysic [astro-ph.IM]

Pierre Henri, Anders Eriksson, Niklas Edberg, Christian Béghin, Pierrette Décréau, et al.. Mapping of the cometary plasma density around comet CG/67P at perihelion.. AGU Fall Meeting 2015, Dec 2015, San Francisco, United States. pp.P31E-2112. ⟨insu-01249319⟩