Mineralogical Implications of CONSERT Permittivity Characterization of 67P

Alain Herique (1) , Wlodek Kofman (1) , Pierre Beck (2) , Lydie Bonal (1) , E. Buttarazzi , Essam Heggy , Jérémie Lasue (3) , Anny Chantal Levasseur-Regourd (4) , Eric Quirico (1) , Sonia Zine (1)

1 IPAG - Institut de Planétologie et d'Astrophysique de Grenoble
2 OSUG - Observatoire des Sciences de l'Univers de Grenoble
3 IRAP - Institut de recherche en astrophysique et planétologie
4 PLANETO - LATMOS

On 12 November 2014, after the descent and rebounds of the lander Philae, COmet Nucleus Sounding Experiment by Radio Transmission (CONSERT) restarted operating at 18h56 UTC and continued until 04h06 UTC, providing the first investigation of the internal structure of the nucleus of a comet. The analysis of the signal that propagated throughout the upper part of “head” of 67P allows us to estimate an average permittivity of approximately 1.27 (Kofman et al., 2015). This average permittivity induces constraints on the permittivity of the dust components versus volume fraction of dust and ices. We analyze constraints on dust permittivity using mixing formulas and ice composition models. Additional comparisons to laboratory measurements will allow us to discuss the implication on composition and mineralogy of the 67P dust particules.

Domains: Earth and Planetary Astrophysics [astro-ph.EP]

Alain Herique, Wlodek Kofman, Pierre Beck, Lydie Bonal, E. Buttarazzi, et al.. Mineralogical Implications of CONSERT Permittivity Characterization of 67P. "From Giotto to Rosetta" 50th ESLAB Symposium, Mar 2016, Leiden, Netherlands. ⟨insu-01290276⟩