Sublimation of icy aggregates in the coma of comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko detected with the OSIRIS cameras on board Rosetta. - INSU - Institut national des sciences de l'Univers Access content directly
Journal Articles Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society Year : 2016

Sublimation of icy aggregates in the coma of comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko detected with the OSIRIS cameras on board Rosetta.

Jean-Loup Bertaux
  • Function : Author
  • PersonId : 914210
Pedro J. Gutiérrez
  • Function : Author
  • PersonId : 880386
Wing-Huen Ip
Laurent Jorda
Nicolas Thomas

Abstract

Beginning in March 2014, the OSIRIS (Optical, Spectroscopic, and Infrared Remote Imaging System) cameras began capturing images of the nucleus and coma (gas and dust) of comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko using both the wide angle camera (WAC) and the narrow angle camera (NAC). The many observations taken since July of 2014 have been used to study the morphology, location, and temporal variation of the comet’s dust jets. We analyzed the dust monitoring observations shortly after the southern vernal equinox on May 30 and 31, 2015 with the WAC at the heliocentric distance Rh = 1.53 AU, where it is possible to observe that the jet rotates with the nucleus. We found that the decline of brightness as a function of the distance of the jet is much steeper than the background coma, which is a first indication of sublimation. We adapted a model of sublimation of icy aggregates and studied the effect as a function of the physical properties of the aggregates (composition and size). The major finding of this article was that through the sublimation of the aggregates of dirty grains (radius a between 5μm and 50μm) we were able to completely reproduce the radial brightness profile of a jet beyond 4 km from the nucleus. To reproduce the data we needed to inject a number of aggregates between 8.5 × 1013 and 8.5 × 1010 for a = 5μm and 50μm respectively, or an initial mass of H2O ice around 22kg.
Fichier principal
Vignette du fichier
stw2117.pdf (3.13 Mo) Télécharger le fichier
Origin : Publisher files allowed on an open archive
Loading...

Dates and versions

insu-01367966 , version 1 (12-10-2019)

Identifiers

Cite

Adeline Gicquel, Jean-Baptiste Vincent, Jessica Agarwal, Michael F. A'Hearn, Ivano Bertini, et al.. Sublimation of icy aggregates in the coma of comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko detected with the OSIRIS cameras on board Rosetta.. Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society, 2016, 462 (Suppl. 1), pp.S57-S66. ⟨10.1093/mnras/stw2117⟩. ⟨insu-01367966⟩
269 View
61 Download

Altmetric

Share

Gmail Facebook Twitter LinkedIn More