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The Agilkia boulders/pebbles size-frequency distributions: OSIRIS and ROLIS joint observations of 67P surface

Maurizio Pajola 1, 2 Sefano Mottola 3 Maximilian Hamm 3 Marco Fulle 4 B. Davidsson 5 C. Güttler 6 H. Sierks 6 G. Naletto 7, 2, 8 G. Arnold 3 Hans Grothues 9 R. Jaumann 10, 3 H. Michaelis 3 Jean-Pierre Bibring 11 C. Barbieri 2, 12 P. L. Lamy 13 R. Rodrigo 14, 15 D. Koschny 16 H. Rickman 17, 18 H. U. Keller 19 J. Agarwal 6 Michael F. A'Hearn 20 M. A. Barucci 21 Jean-Loup Bertaux 22 I. Bertini 2 S. Boudreault 6 G. Cremonese 23 V. da Deppo 8 S. Debei 24 M. de Cecco 25 J. Deller 6 M. R. El Maarry 26 Clément Feller 21 Sonia Fornasier 21 A. Gicquel 6 Olivier Groussin 13 Pedro J. Gutiérrez 27 M. Hofmann 6 S. F. Hviid 3 H. Ip 28 L. Jorda 13 Jörg Knollenberg 3 J.-Rainer Kramm 6 Ekkehard Kührt 3 Michael Küppers 29 Florangela La Forgia 12 L. M. Lara 27 Z. Y. Lin 28 Monica Lazzarin 12 Josè Juan Lopez-Moreno 27 A. Lucchetti 23 Francesco Marzari 12 Matteo Massironi 30 Harald Michalik 31 Nilda Oklay 6 A. Pommerol 26 Frank Preusker 3 Frank Scholten 3 Nicholas Thomas 26 Cecilia Tubiana 6 Jean-Baptiste Vincent 6
1 ARC - NASA Ames Research Center
2 CISAS - Centro di Ateneo di Studi e Attività Spaziali “Giuseppe Colombo”
3 DLR Institut für Planetenforschung
4 OAT - INAF - Osservatorio Astronomico di Trieste
5 JPL - Jet Propulsion Laboratory
6 MPS - Max-Planck-Institut für Sonnensystemforschung
7 DEI - Department of Information Engineering [Padova]
8 IFN - CNR Institute for Photonics and Nanotechnologies
9 DLR - Deutsches Zentrum für Luft- und Raumfahrt
10 Institute of Geological Sciences
11 IAS - Institut d'astrophysique spatiale
12 Dipartimento di Fisica e Astronomia "Galileo Galilei"
13 LAM - Laboratoire d'Astrophysique de Marseille
14 CAB - Centro de Astrobiologia [Madrid]
15 ISSI - International Space Science Institute [Bern]
16 ESTEC - European Space Research and Technology Centre
17 CBK - Space Research Centre of Polish Academy of Sciences
18 Department of Physics and Astronomy [Uppsala]
19 IGEP - Institut für Geophysik und Extraterrestrische Physik [Braunschweig]
20 Department of Astronomy [College Park]
21 LESIA - Laboratoire d'études spatiales et d'instrumentation en astrophysique
22 IMPEC - LATMOS
LATMOS - Laboratoire Atmosphères, Milieux, Observations Spatiales
23 OAPD - INAF - Osservatorio Astronomico di Padova
24 Department of Industrial Engineering [Padova]
25 UNITN - Università degli Studi di Trento
26 Physikalisches Institut [Bern]
27 IAA - Instituto de Astrofísica de Andalucía
28 Institute of Space Science [Taiwan]
29 Operations Department (ESAC)
30 Dipartimento di Geoscienze [Padova]
31 IDA - Institute of Computer and Network Engineering [Braunschweig]
Abstract : By using the images acquired by the OSIRIS and ROLIS cameras, we derive the size-frequency distribution (SFD) of cometary pebbles and boulders covering the size range 0.05 - 30.0 m on the Agilkia landing site. The global SFD measured on OSIRIS images, reflects the different properties of the multiple morphological units present on Agilkia, combined with selection effects related to lifting, transport and redeposition. Contrarily, the different ROLIS SFD derived on the smooth and rough units may be related to their different regolith thickness present on Agilkia. In the thicker, smoother layer, ROLIS mainly measures the SFD of the airfall population that almost completely obliterate the signature of underlying boulders up to a size of the order of 1 m. This is well matched by the power-law index derived analysing coma particles identified by the grain analyser GIADA. This result confirms the important blanketing dynamism of Agilkia. The steeper SFD observed in rough terrains from 0.4 to 2 m could point out intrinsic differences between northern and southern dust size distributions, or it may suggest that the underlying boulders ”peek through” the thinner airfall layer in the rough terrain, thereby producing the observed excess in the decimeter size range. Eventually, the OSIRIS SFD performed on Philae landing unit may be due to water sublimation from a static population of boulders, affecting smaller boulders before the bigger ones, thus shallowing the original SFD.
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Journal articles
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https://hal-insu.archives-ouvertes.fr/insu-01387594
Contributor : Catherine Cardon <>
Submitted on : Tuesday, October 25, 2016 - 5:48:57 PM
Last modification on : Wednesday, October 14, 2020 - 4:06:48 AM

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INSU | CNRS | OBSPM | LESIA | UPMC | OSU-INSTITUT-PYTHEAS | UVSQ | LAM | LATMOS | UNIV-AMU | UNIV-PARIS-SACLAY | SORBONNE-UNIVERSITE | UNIV-PARIS7 | USPC | SU-SCIENCES | UNIV-PARIS | UP-SCIENCES | PSL

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Maurizio Pajola, Sefano Mottola, Maximilian Hamm, Marco Fulle, B. Davidsson, et al.. The Agilkia boulders/pebbles size-frequency distributions: OSIRIS and ROLIS joint observations of 67P surface. Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society, Oxford University Press (OUP): Policy P - Oxford Open Option A, 2016, 462 (Suppl. 1), pp.S242-S252. ⟨10.1093/mnras/stw2720⟩. ⟨insu-01387594⟩

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