Discovery and Exploration of Comet 67P/CHURYUMOV-GERASIMENKO - the Main Target of the Rosetta Space Mission

Details Discovery and Exploration of Comet 67P/CHURYUMOV-GERASIMENKO - the Main Target of the Rosetta Space Mission Discovery and Exploration of Comet 67P/CHURYUMOV-GERASIMENKO - the Main Target of the Rosetta Space Mission

Aug 2006

adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-data_query?bibcode=2006iaujd..10e..30c&link_type=abstract

Progress in Planetary Exploration Missions, 26th meeting of the IAU, Joint Discussion 10, 21-22 August 2006, Prague, Czech Repub

Astronomy and Astrophysics

Astrophysics

Scientific paper

The short period comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko from the Jupiter comet family is selected as main target of the European space mission Rosetta. In September 1969 the three collaborators of expedition of Kyiv Shevchenko University went to the Alma-Ata Astrophysical Institute to conduct a survey of short period and new comets. The main result of the expedition was the discovery of the new short period comet 67P on Oct. 22 ,1969 on the five plates obtained by Klim Churyumov and Svetlana Gerasimenko Sept. 9, 11 and 21, 1969 with the help of 50-cm f/2.4 Maksutov telescope in Alam-Ata. The comparison of comet 67P/ Churyumov-Gerasimenko's light curve in its 1982-1983 apparition and the curve of the solar activity indices changes that are reduced to the comet`s center shows that the variations of the comet's brightness rather well correlate with the changes of the solar indices. On the basis of photometric processing of the two photographic images of comet 67P obtained in Nizhny Arkhyz with the help of the 6- BTA reflector of SAO of RAS some physical parameters of the comet plasma tail (coefficients of diffusion D[||], D[????]and induction of magnetic field B) were determined. (Jan. 12.105, 1983 UT: D[||]=5.07×10^14±1.21 ×10^15 cm^2/s, D[?]=5.73×10^13±1.37×10^14 cm^2/s, B=46±111 nT; Jan. 13.124, 1983 UT: D[||]=4.67×10^14÷1.14 ×10^15 cm^2/s, D[?]=4.30×10^13±1.05×10^14 cm^2/s, B=55±134 nT). The obtained upper estimates of induction of the magnetic field B ≈ 111 nT for Jan. 12,1983 and B ≈ 134 nT for Jan. 13,1983 probably surpass real values of B in the cometary plasma tail. I think that this peculiarity of magnetic fields in plasma tail of comet 67P is tight connected with the magnetic properties of the surface layers of the cometary nucleus. I hope that this problem will be successful solved with the help of the device ROMAP installed on the ROSETTA Lander when it will land on the comet 67P nucleus in 2014.

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