A quantitative interpretation of the in-situ observations of the dust coma of comet P/Grigg-Skjellerup by the OPE photopolarimeter.

Details A quantitative interpretation of the in-situ observations of the dust coma of comet P/Grigg-Skjellerup by the OPE photopolarimeter. A quantitative interpretation of the in-situ observations of the dust coma of comet P/Grigg-Skjellerup by the OPE photopolarimeter.

Apr 1996

adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-data_query?bibcode=1996a%26a...308..261l&link_type=abstract

Astronomy and Astrophysics, v.308, p.261-272

Astronomy and Astrophysics

Astrophysics

5

Comets: General, Comets: P/Grigg-Skjellerup

Scientific paper

On July 10, 1992, the Giotto spacecraft passed by comet P/Grigg-Skjellerup. The eight-channel OPE photopolarimeter provided data throughout the flyby, excepting very brief data losses. The time profile of the data of all channels during the flyby was rather unexpected, characterized, in particular, by four "sudden increases" of extremely small risetime and large amplitudes, followed by decreases exhibiting an inverse square dependence upon time. We here provide a quantitative fit to all data acquired by the channels sensitive to dust emissions. This fit is based on the following assumptions: (1) the four transients are due to light scattered by shells of fine dust or debris ejected by four impacts on the foremost part of the spacecraft; this interpretation is shown to be fully consistent with the previous analysis of radio-science data by Paetzold et al. (1993); (2) the rest of the signal is due to a classical spherically symmetric inner dust coma. The following results are obtained: (1) the spacecraft closest approach to the nucleus was 95km, and the OPE line of sight missed the nucleus by 7km; (2) the brightness of the inner dust coma obeys a strict {prop.to}r^-1^ radial dependence law for 7km

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