Related papers: Cold electrons at comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko
We present OSIRIS/NAC observations of decimetre-sized, likely ice-containing aggregates ejected from a confined region on the surface of comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko. The images were obtained in January 2016 when the comet was at 2 AU…
The Alice far-ultraviolet imaging spectrograph onboard Rosetta observed emissions from atomic and molecular species from within the coma of comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko during the entire escort phase of the mission from 2014 August to…
The Rosetta mission of the European Space Agency has been orbiting the comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko (67P) since August 2014 and is now in its escort phase. A large complement of scientific experiments designed to complete the most…
We study the evolution of ultracold plasmas by measuring the electron temperature. Shortly after plasma formation, competition between heating and cooling mechanisms drives the electron temperature to a value within a narrow range…
The nature of the icy material accreted by comets during their formation in the outer regions of the protosolar nebula is a major open question in planetary science. Some scenarios of comet formation predict that these bodies agglomerated…
Here we review some of the major findings of the mass spectrometer suite ROSINA on board of ESA's Rosetta spacecraft to comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko. For more than 2 years, ROSINA continuously measured the composition of the gases…
While ion heating by elastic electron-ion collisions may be neglected for a description of the evolution of freely expanding ultracold neutral plasmas, the situation is different in scenarios where the ions are laser-cooled during the…
The Alice ultraviolet spectrograph on board the \textit{Rosetta} orbiter provided the first near-nucleus ultraviolet observations of a cometary coma from arrival at comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko in 2014 August through 2016 September. The…
Plasma dynamics critically depends on density and temperature, thus well-controlled experimental realizations are essential benchmarks for theoretical models. The formation of an ultracold plasma can be triggered by ionizing a tunable…
Cometary activity affects the orbital motion and rotation state due to sublimation induced forces. The availability of precise rotation-axis orientation and position data from the Rosetta mission allows one to accurately determine the…
Comets, asteroids, and other small bodies are thought to be remnants of the original planetesimal population of the Solar System. As such, their physical, chemical, and isotopic properties hold crucial details on how and where they formed…
Comets are made of volatile and refractory material and naturally experience various degrees of sublimation as they orbit around the Sun. This gas release, accompanied by dust, represents what is traditionally described as activity.…
One of the main aims of the ESA Rosetta mission is to study the origin of the solar system by exploring comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko at close range. In this paper we discuss the origin and evolution of comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko in…
We present Rosetta RPC case study from four events at various radial distance, phase angle and local time from autumn 2015, just after perihelion of comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko. Pulse like (high amplitude, up to minutes in time)…
Comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko is the main target of ESA's Rosetta mission and will be encountered in May 2014. As the spacecraft shall be in orbit the comet nucleus before and after release of the lander {\it Philae}, it is necessary…
Comets are small bodies thought to contain the most pristine material in the solar system. However, since their formation 4.5 Gy ago, they have been altered by different processes. While not exposed to much electromagnetic radiation, they…
The Cometary Secondary Ion Mass Analyzer (COSIMA) onboard ESA's Rosetta orbiter has revealed that dust particles in the coma of Comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko are aggregates of small grains. We study the morphological, elastic, and…
We here study the transfer process of material from one hemisphere to the other (deposition of airfall material) on an active comet nucleus, specifically 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko. Our goals are to: 1) quantify the thickness of the airfall…
ESA's Rosetta spacecraft at comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko (67P) was the first mission that accompanied a comet over a substantial fraction of its orbit. On board was the ROSINA mass spectrometer suite to measure the local densities of the…
We investigate the ability of a simultaneous fitting of comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko's non-gravitational forces, torques and total water-outgassing rate, as observed by Rosetta, to constrain complex thermophysical models of cometary…