How MIDAS improved our understanding of micrometre- sized cometary dust

Thurid Mannel (1, 2) , Mark Stephen Bentley (1) , Peter Boakes (1) , Harald Jeszenszky (1) , Anny Chantal Levasseur-Regourd (3) , Roland Schmied (1) , Klaus Torkar (1)

1 IWF - Space Research Institute of Austrian Academy of Sciences
2 Institute of Physics [Graz]
3 PLANETO - LATMOS

The MIDAS atomic force microscope on the Rosetta orbiter was an instrument developed to investigate, for the first time, the morphology of nearly unaltered cometary dust. It acquired the 3D topography of about 1-50 µm sized dust particles with resolutions down to a few nanometres. These images showed the agglomerate character of the dust and confirmed that the smallest subunit sizes were less than 100 nm. MIDAS acquired the first direct proof of a fractal dust particle, opening a new approach to investigate the history of our early Solar System and of comets.

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

Thurid Mannel, Mark Stephen Bentley, Peter Boakes, Harald Jeszenszky, Anny Chantal Levasseur-Regourd, et al.. How MIDAS improved our understanding of micrometre- sized cometary dust. European Planetary Science Congress 2017, Sep 2017, Riga, Latvia. pp.EPSC2017-258. ⟨insu-01591099⟩