Activity and jets of comet 67P, as observed by OSIRIS since August 2014
Abstract
Dust jets, i.e. fuzzy collimated streams of cometary material arising from the nucleus, have been observed in-situ on all comets since the Giotto mission flew by comet 1P/Halley in 1986. Yet their formation mechanism remains unknown. Several solutions have been proposed, from localized physical mechanisms on the surface/sub-surface to purely dynamical processes involving the focusing of gas flows by the local topography. While the latter seems to be responsible forthe larger features, high resolution imagery has shown that broad streams are composed of many smaller features (a few meters wide) that connect directly to the nucleus surface.The OSIRIS cameras on board Rosetta are monitoring these jets in high resolution images since August 2014. We followed this type of activity from 3.6 AU to perihelion (1.23 AU). We have traced the jets back to their sources on the surface and noticed a good correlation with sub-solar latitude, surface morphologies, and color variations. As the comet receives more insolation, we observed different type of jets, some of them sustained beyond the local sunset, and an increasing number of transient events with sudden release of gas and dust.We will present here how activity changes with local seasons and how it contributes to the erosion of the surface.Acknowledgements: OSIRIS was built by a consortium led by the Max-Planck-Institut für Sonnensystemforschung, Göttingen, Germany, in collaboration with CISAS, University of Padova, Italy, the Laboratoire d'Astrophysique de Marseille, France, the Instituto de Astrofisica de Andalucia, CSIC, Granada, Spain, the Scientific Support Office of the European Space Agency, Noordwijk, The Netherlands, the Instituto Nacional de Tecnica Aeroespacial, Madrid, Spain, the Universidad Politechnica de Madrid, Spain, the Department of Physics and Astronomy of Uppsala University, Sweden, and the Institut für Datentechnik und Kommunikationsnetze der Technischen Universität Braunschweig, Germany. We thank the Rosetta Science Ground Segment at ESAC, the Rosetta Mission Operations Centre at ESOC and the Rosetta Project at ESTEC for their outstanding work enabling the science return of the Rosetta Mission.
- Publication:
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AAS/Division for Planetary Sciences Meeting Abstracts #47
- Pub Date:
- November 2015
- Bibcode:
- 2015DPS....4741307V