Search Publications
Outbursts of comets at large heliocentric distances: Concise review and numerical simulations of brightness jumps
Wesołowski, M.; Gronkowski, P.; Tralle, I.
The outburst of comet brightness is spectacular and well-known manifestation of the physical activity of these relatively small cosmic bodies. The outbursts of brightness are observed for periodic comets, as well as for the comets moving along parabolic trajectories. The most known comet representing such kind of activity is the comet 29P/Schwassm…
Zodiacal light observations and its link with cosmic dust: A review
Lasue, Jeremie; Levasseur-Regourd, Anny-Chantal; Renard, Jean-Baptiste
The zodiacal light is a nightglow mostly visible along the plane of the ecliptic. It represents the background radiation associated with solar light scattered by the tenuous flattened interplanetary cloud of dust particles surrounding the Sun and the planets. It is an interesting subject of study, as the source of the micrometeoroids falling on Ea…
Analogues of interplanetary dust particles to interpret the zodiacal light polarization
Lasue, J.; Levasseur-Regourd, A. C.; Hadamcik, E. +1 more
The morphological, elastic, and electric properties of dust aggregates in comets: A close look at COSIMA/Rosetta's data on dust in comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko
Kimura, Hiroshi; Merouane, Sihane; Paquette, John +2 more
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 electric properties of dust aggregates in the coma of comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko using optical microscopic imag…
Porosity gradients as a means of driving lateral flows at cometary surfaces
Thomas, Nicolas; Christou, Chariton; Dadzie, S. Kokou +1 more
The Rosetta spacecraft has provided invaluable and unexpected information about cometary outgassing. The on-board instruments ROSINA, MIRO, and VIRTIS showed non-uniform outgassing of H2O over the surface of the nucleus. Rarefied gas flows display remarkable flow phenomena that may help explain diverse physical observations and models h…
Linking studies of tiny meteoroids, zodiacal dust, cometary dust and circumstellar disks
Lasue, J.; Milli, J.; Levasseur-Regourd, A. C. +2 more
Tiny meteoroids entering the Earth's atmosphere and inducing meteor showers have long been thought to originate partly from cometary dust. Together with other dust particles, they form a huge cloud around the Sun, the zodiacal cloud. From our previous studies of the zodiacal light, as well as other independent methods (dynamical studies, infrared …
Optical properties of cometary particles collected by COSIMA: Assessing the differences between microscopic and macroscopic scales
Langevin, Y.; Schulz, R.; Hilchenbach, M. +6 more
The COSIMA mass spectrometer on-board Rosetta was equipped with an optical microscope, Cosiscope, which identified several 10,000 cometary particles collected on targets exposed during the orbital phase around the nucleus of comet 67P Churyumov-Gerasimenko. The median value of reflectance factors evaluated from Cosiscope images for large collected…
Electron dynamics near diamagnetic regions of comet 67P/Churyumov- Gerasimenko
Goldstein, R.; Mokashi, P.; Richter, I. +8 more
The Rosetta spacecraft detected transient and sporadic diamagnetic regions around comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko. In this paper we present a statistical analysis of bulk and suprathermal electron dynamics, as well as a case study of suprathermal electron pitch angle distributions (PADs) near a diamagnetic region. Bulk electron densities are corre…
Micro- and nanolander on the surface of Ryugu - Commonalities, differences and lessons learned for future microgravity exploration
Ulamec, Stephan; Ho, Tra-Mi; Lange, Caroline +2 more
Recent Space missions to the small bodies in our Solar System have shown an increasing importance of in-situ investigations. Philae, the comet lander of the ESA Rosetta mission performed the first landing on such a small body and its results clearly enhanced the overall scientific output of the Rosetta mission. While Philae was a rather heavy (~10…
Electrical properties of cometary dust particles derived from line shapes of TOF-SIMS spectra measured by the ROSETTA/COSIMA instrument
Langevin, Yves; Fischer, Henning; Koch, Andreas +21 more
Between Aug. 2014 and Sept. 2016, while ESA's cornerstone mission Rosetta was operating in the vicinity of the nucleus and in the coma of comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko, the COSIMA instrument collected a large number of dust particles with diameters up to a millimeter. Positive or negative ions were detected by a time-of-flight secondary ion mass…