Long-term monitoring of comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko’s jets with OSIRIS onboard Rosetta

M. I. Schmitt (1) , Cécilia Tubiana (1) , Carsten Güttler (1) , Holger Sierks (1) , Jean-Baptiste Vincent (2) , Mohamed Ramy El-Maarry (3) , Dennis Bodewits (4) , Stefano Mottola (2) , Sonia Fornasier (5) , Marc Hofmann (1) , Ceasre Barbieri (6) , Philippe L. Lamy (7) , Rafael Rodrigo (8, 9) , Detlef Koschny (10) , Hans Rickman (11, 12) , Michael F. A'Hearn (4) , Jessica Agarwal (1) , Maria Antonella Barucci (5) , Jean-Loup Bertaux (13) , Ivano Bertini (14) , Gabriele Cremonese (15) , Vania da Deppo (16) , Björn Davidsson (17) , Stefano Debei (18) , Mariolino de Cecco (19) , Jakob Deller (1) , Marco Fulle (20) , Adeline Gicquel (17) , Olivier Groussin (7) , Pedro J. Gutiérrez (21) , Stubbe F. Hviid (2) , Wing-Huen Ip (22, 23) , Laurent Jorda (7) , Horst Uwe Keller (2, 24) , Jörg Knollenberg (2) , J. Rainer Kramm (1) , Ekkehard Kührt (2) , Michael Küppers (25) , Luisa M. Lara (21) , Monica Lazzarin (6) , José J. López-Moreno (21) , Francesco Marzari (6) , Giampiero Naletto (26, 14, 16) , Nilda Oklay (2) , Maurizio Pajola (27) , Deshapriya Prasanna (5) , Xian Shi (1) , Frank Scholten (2) , Imre Toth (28, 7) , Nicolas Thomas (29, 30)

1 MPS - Max-Planck-Institut für Sonnensystemforschung
2 DLR Institut für Planetenforschung
3 LASP - Laboratory for Atmospheric and Space Physics [Boulder]
4 Department of Astronomy [College Park]
5 LESIA - Laboratoire d'études spatiales et d'instrumentation en astrophysique
6 Dipartimento di Fisica e Astronomia "Galileo Galilei"
7 LAM - Laboratoire d'Astrophysique de Marseille
8 CAB - Centro de Astrobiologia [Madrid]
9 ISSI - International Space Science Institute [Bern]
10 ESTEC - European Space Research and Technology Centre
11 Department of Physics and Astronomy [Uppsala]
12 CBK - Space Research Centre of Polish Academy of Sciences
13 PLANETO - LATMOS
14 CISAS - Centro di Ateneo di Studi e Attività Spaziali “Giuseppe Colombo”
15 OAPD - INAF - Osservatorio Astronomico di Padova
16 IFN - CNR Institute for Photonics and Nanotechnologies
17 JPL - Jet Propulsion Laboratory
18 Department of Industrial Engineering [Padova]
19 University of Trento [Trento]
20 OAT - INAF - Osservatorio Astronomico di Trieste
21 IAA - Instituto de Astrofísica de Andalucía
22 SSI - Space Science Institute [Macau]
23 Institute of Space Science [Taiwan]
24 IGEP - Institut für Geophysik und Extraterrestrische Physik [Braunschweig]
25 Operations Department (ESAC)
26 DEI - Department of Information Engineering [Padova]
27 ARC - NASA Ames Research Center
28 Konkoly Observatory
29 CSH - Center for Space and Habitability
30 Physikalisches Institut [Bern]

We used the OSIRIS camera system onboard the Rosetta spacecraft to monitor jet activity of comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko. With a monthly cadence, we covered an epoch from December 2014 to October 2015, thereby including the first equinox and the perihelion passage. Jet features were measured in individual images, which were used to perform a statistical inversion. The study provides maps for the locations of likeliest sources of jet activity on the comet’s surface as a function of time. The sources follow the sub-solar latitude, show clustering and a broadening of the activity band with time in the Northern hemisphere. On the Southern hemisphere they are not clustered but show a broader spread over all longitudes which is either related to the north-south dichotomy of the comet’s topography or due to a higher insolation during southern summer.

Keywords: comets; 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko

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

M. I. Schmitt, Cécilia Tubiana, Carsten Güttler, Holger Sierks, Jean-Baptiste Vincent, et al.. Long-term monitoring of comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko’s jets with OSIRIS onboard Rosetta. Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society, 2017, 469 (Suppl_2), pp.S380-S385. ⟨10.1093/mnras/stx1780⟩. ⟨insu-01574684⟩