The 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko observation campaign in support of the Rosetta mission

Colin Snodgrass (1) , Michael F. A'Hearn (2) , Francisco Aceituno (3) , Viktor Afanasiev (4) , Sefano Bagnulo (5) , J. Bauer (6) , G. Bergond (7) , S. Besse (8) , Nicolas Biver (9, 10) , Dennis Bodewits (2) , H. Boehnhardt (11) , Boncho P. Bonev (12) , G. Borisov (5, 13) , Benoit Carry (14, 15) , V. Casanova (3) , A. Cochran (16) , B. C. Conn (17, 18) , Björn Davidsson (6) , J. K. Davies (19) , J. de León (20, 21) , E. de Mooij (22) , Miguel de Val-Borro (23, 24, 25) , M. Delacruz (26) , M. A. Disanti (27) , J. E. Drew (28) , René Duffard (3) , Niklas Jt Edberg (29) , S. Faggi , L. Feaga (2) , Alan Fitzsimmons (22) , H. Fujiwara (30) , E. L. Gibb (31) , M. Gillon (32) , S. F. Green (1) , A. Guijarro (7) , Aurélie Guilbert-Lepoutre (33) , Pedro J. Gutiérrez (3) , Edith Hadamcik (34) , Olivier Hainaut (35) , Shirin Haque (36) , R. Hedrosa (7) , Dean Hines (37) , U. Hopp (38) , F. Hoyo (7) , D. Hutsemékers (32) , M. Hyland (22) , O. Ivanova (39) , E. Jehin (32) , G. H. Jones (40, 41) , J. V. Keane (26) , M. S. P. Kelley (2) , Nikolai Kiselev (42) , J. Kleyna (26) , M. Kluge (38) , Matthew M. Knight (2) , R. Kokotanekova (1, 11) , Detlef Koschny (43) , E. Kramer (6) , Josè Juan Lopez-Moreno (3) , Pedro Lacerda (22) , Luisa M. Lara (3) , Jérémie Lasue (44) , H. J. Lehto (45) , Anny Chantal Levasseur-Regourd (34) , Javier Licandro (21) , Zhong-Yi Lin (46) , Tim Lister (47) , Stephen C. Lowry (48) , A. Mainzer (6) , Jean Manfroid (32) , J. Marchant (49) , A. J. Mckay (16) , A. Mcneill (22) , Karen J. Meech (26) , Marco Micheli (50) , Isa Mohammed (51) , Maria Monguió (28) , Fernando Moreno (3) , O. Muñoz (3) , M. J. Mumma (27) , P. Nikolov (13) , Cyrielle Opitom (32) , José Luis Ortiz (3) , Lucas Paganini (27) , Myriam Pajuelo (52, 15) , Francisco J. Pozuelos (3) , Silvia Protopapa (2) , Tapio, Pursimo (53) , B. Rajkumar (51) , Yudish Ramanjooloo (26) , Christoph Ries (38) , Arno Riffeser (38) , Vera Rosenbush (42) , Philippe Rousselot (33) , Erin Ryan (54) , Pablo Santos-Sanz (3) , David G. Schleicher (55) , M. Schmidt (38) , R. Schulz (56) , A. K. Sen (57) , A. Somero (45) , A. Sota (3) , A. Stinson (5) , Jessica M. Sunshine (2) , A. Thompson (22) , G. P. Tozzi (58) , Cécilia Tubiana (11) , G. L. Villanueva (27) , X. Wang (59, 60) , D. H. Wooden (61) , Manabu Yagi (30) , Bin Yang (35) , B. Zaprudin (45) , T. J. Zegmott (48)

1 School of Physical Sciences [Milton Keynes]
2 Department of Astronomy [College Park]
3 IAA - Instituto de Astrofísica de Andalucía
4 SAO - Special Astrophysical Observatory of the Russian Academy of Sciences
5 Armagh Observatory [Armagh]
6 JPL - Jet Propulsion Laboratory
7 CAHA - Centro Astronómico Hispano Alemán, Observatorio de Calar Alto
8 ESAC - European Space Astronomy Centre
9 LESIA - Laboratoire d'études spatiales et d'instrumentation en astrophysique
10 Pôle Planétologie du LESIA
11 MPS - Max-Planck-Institut für Sonnensystemforschung
12 Department of Physics [Washington]
13 Institute of Astronomy of the Bulgarian Academy of Sciences
14 LAGRANGE - Joseph Louis LAGRANGE
15 IMCCE - Institut de Mécanique Céleste et de Calcul des Ephémérides
16 McDonald Observatory
17 RSAA - Research School of Astronomy and Astrophysics [Canberra]
18 Gemini Observatory [Southern Operations Center]
19 UK ATC - UK Astronomy Technology Centre
20 ULL - Universidad de La Laguna [Tenerife - SP]
21 IAC - Instituto de Astrofisica de Canarias
22 ARC - Astrophysics Research Centre [Belfast]
23 Catholic University of America
24 Astrochemistry Laboratory [Greenbelt]
25 Department of Astrophysical Sciences [Princeton]
26 Institute for Astronomy [Honolulu]
27 GSFC - NASA Goddard Space Flight Center
28 School of Physics, Astronomy and Mathematics [Hatfield]
29 IRF - Swedish Institute of Space Physics [Uppsala]
30 NAOJ - National Astronomical Observatory of Japan
31 Mizzou Physics - Department of Physics and Astronomy [Columbia]
32 Institut d'Astrophysique et de Géophysique [Liège]
33 UTINAM - Univers, Transport, Interfaces, Nanostructures, Atmosphère et environnement, Molécules (UMR 6213)
34 PLANETO - LATMOS
35 ESO - European Southern Observatory
36 Department of Physics [Trinidad]
37 STSci - Space Telescope Science Institute
38 LMU - Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München
39 Astronomical Institute of the Slovak Academy of Sciences
40 MSSL - Mullard Space Science Laboratory
41 CPS - Centre for Planetary Sciences [UCL/Birkbeck]
42 MAO - Main Astronomical Observatory of NAS of Ukraine
43 RSSD - Research and Scientific Support Department, ESTEC
44 IRAP - Institut de recherche en astrophysique et planétologie
45 Tuorla Observatory
46 IANCU - Institute of Astronomy [Taiwan]
47 LCO - Las Cumbres Observatory
48 CAPS - Centre for Astrophysics and Planetary Science [Canterbury]
49 ARI - Astrophysics Research Institute [Liverpool]
50 ESA SSA-NEO Coordination Centre
51 CARINA - Caribbean Institute of Astronomy
52 PUCP - Pontificia Universidad Católica del Perú = Pontifical Catholic University of Peru
53 NOT - Nordic Optical Telescope
54 SETI Institute
55 Lowell Observatory [Flagstaff]
56 ESA Scientific Support Office
57 Assam University
58 OAA - INAF - Osservatorio Astrofisico di Arcetri
59 Key Laboratory for the Structure and Evolution of Celestial Objects
60 Yunnan Observatories
61 ARC - NASA Ames Research Center

We present a summary of the campaign of remote observations that supported the European Space Agency’s Rosetta mission. Telescopes across the globe (and in space) followed comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko from before Rosetta’s arrival until nearly the end of mission in September 2016. These provided essential data for mission planning, large-scale context information for the coma and tails beyond the spacecraft, and a way to directly compare 67P with other comets. The observations revealed 67P to be a relatively ‘well behaved’ comet, typical of Jupiter family comets and with activity patterns that repeat from orbit-to-orbit. Comparison between this large collection of telescopic observations and the in situ results from Rosetta will allow us to better understand comet coma chemistry and structure. This work is just beginning as the mission ends. In this paper we present a summary of the ground-based observations and early results, and point to many questions that will be addressed in future studies.

Domains: Earth and Planetary Astrophysics [astro-ph.EP]; Solar and Stellar Astrophysics [astro-ph.SR]

Colin Snodgrass, Michael F. A'Hearn, Francisco Aceituno, Viktor Afanasiev, Sefano Bagnulo, et al.. The 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko observation campaign in support of the Rosetta mission. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society A: Mathematical, Physical and Engineering Sciences, 2017, 375 (n° 2097), ⟨10.1098/rsta.2016.0249⟩. ⟨insu-01401839⟩