Birth of a comet magnetosphere: A spring of water ions - INSU - Institut national des sciences de l'Univers Access content directly
Journal Articles Science Year : 2015

Birth of a comet magnetosphere: A spring of water ions

C. S. Wedlund
  • Function : Author
C. Carr
A. Eriksson
  • Function : Author
Pat Mokashi
  • Function : Author
  • PersonId : 974800

Abstract

The Rosetta mission shall accompany comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko from a heliocentric distance of >3.6 astronomical units through perihelion passage at 1.25 astronomical units, spanning low and maximum activity levels. Initially, the solar wind permeates the thin comet atmosphere formed from sublimation, until the size and plasma pressure of the ionized atmosphere define its boundaries: A magnetosphere is born. Using the Rosetta Plasma Consortium ion composition analyzer, we trace the evolution from the first detection of water ions to when the atmosphere begins repelling the solar wind (similar to 3.3 astronomical units), and we report the spatial structure of this early interaction. The near-comet water population comprises accelerated ions (<800 electron volts), produced upstream of Rosetta, and lower energy locally produced ions; we estimate the fluxes of both ion species and energetic neutral atoms.
Fichier principal
Vignette du fichier
Science_RPC-ICA_rev1_ed_comm_Accepted_CC.pdf (195.32 Ko) Télécharger le fichier
Origin : Files produced by the author(s)
Loading...

Dates and versions

insu-01256291 , version 1 (28-11-2019)

Identifiers

Cite

Hans Nilsson, G. Stenberg Wieser, E. Behar, C. S. Wedlund, H. Gunell, et al.. Birth of a comet magnetosphere: A spring of water ions. Science, 2015, 347 (6220), pp.aaa0571. ⟨10.1126/science.aaa0571⟩. ⟨insu-01256291⟩
160 View
140 Download

Altmetric

Share

Gmail Facebook Twitter LinkedIn More