629 the Comet Rendezvous Asteroid Flyby Mission: A
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1 Characterization of Cometary Activity of 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko
Characterization of cometary activity of 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko comet Abstract After 2.5 years from the end of the mission, the data provided by the ESA/Rosetta mission still leads to important results about 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko (hereafter 67P), belonging to the Jupiter Family Comets. Since comets are among the most primitive bodies of the Solar System, the understanding of their formation and evolution gives important clues about the early stages of our planetary system, including the scenarios of water delivery to Earth. At the present state of knowledge, 67P’s activity has been characterized by measuring the physical properties of the gas and dust coma, by detecting water ice patches on the nucleus surface and by analyzing some peculiar events, such as outbursts. We propose an ISSI International Team to build a more complete scenario of the 67P activity during different stages of its orbit. The retrieved results in terms of dust emission, morphology and composition will be linked together in order to offer new insights about 67P formation and evolution. In particular the main goals of the project are: 1. Retrieval of the activity degree of different 67P geomorphological nucleus regions in different time periods, by reconstructing the motion of the dust particles revealed in the coma; 2. Identification of the main drivers of cometary activity, by studying the link between cometary activity and illumination/local time, dust morphology, surface geomorphology, dust composition. The project will shed light on how (and if) cometary activity is related to surface geology and/or composition or is just driven by local illumination. -
ESO's VLT Sphere and DAMIT
ESO’s VLT Sphere and DAMIT ESO’s VLT SPHERE (using adaptive optics) and Joseph Durech (DAMIT) have a program to observe asteroids and collect light curve data to develop rotating 3D models with respect to time. Up till now, due to the limitations of modelling software, only convex profiles were produced. The aim is to reconstruct reliable nonconvex models of about 40 asteroids. Below is a list of targets that will be observed by SPHERE, for which detailed nonconvex shapes will be constructed. Special request by Joseph Durech: “If some of these asteroids have in next let's say two years some favourable occultations, it would be nice to combine the occultation chords with AO and light curves to improve the models.” 2 Pallas, 7 Iris, 8 Flora, 10 Hygiea, 11 Parthenope, 13 Egeria, 15 Eunomia, 16 Psyche, 18 Melpomene, 19 Fortuna, 20 Massalia, 22 Kalliope, 24 Themis, 29 Amphitrite, 31 Euphrosyne, 40 Harmonia, 41 Daphne, 51 Nemausa, 52 Europa, 59 Elpis, 65 Cybele, 87 Sylvia, 88 Thisbe, 89 Julia, 96 Aegle, 105 Artemis, 128 Nemesis, 145 Adeona, 187 Lamberta, 211 Isolda, 324 Bamberga, 354 Eleonora, 451 Patientia, 476 Hedwig, 511 Davida, 532 Herculina, 596 Scheila, 704 Interamnia Occultation Event: Asteroid 10 Hygiea – Sun 26th Feb 16h37m UT The magnitude 11 asteroid 10 Hygiea is expected to occult the magnitude 12.5 star 2UCAC 21608371 on Sunday 26th Feb 16h37m UT (= Mon 3:37am). Magnitude drop of 0.24 will require video. DAMIT asteroid model of 10 Hygiea - Astronomy Institute of the Charles University: Josef Ďurech, Vojtěch Sidorin Hygiea is the fourth-largest asteroid (largest is Ceres ~ 945kms) in the Solar System by volume and mass, and it is located in the asteroid belt about 400 million kms away. -
Visit the National Academies Press Online, the Authoritative Source
Assessment of the CRAF and Cassini Science Missions: Letter Report Committee on Planetary and Lunar Exploration, Space Science Board, Commission on Physical Sciences, Mathematics, and Resources, National Research Council ISBN: 0-309-12299-6, 7 pages, 8 1/2 x 11, (1988) This free PDF was downloaded from: http://www.nap.edu/catalog/12334.html Visit the National Academies Press online, the authoritative source for all books from the National Academy of Sciences, the National Academy of Engineering, the Institute of Medicine, and the National Research Council: • Download hundreds of free books in PDF • Read thousands of books online, free • Sign up to be notified when new books are published • Purchase printed books • Purchase PDFs • Explore with our innovative research tools Thank you for downloading this free PDF. If you have comments, questions or just want more information about the books published by the National Academies Press, you may contact our customer service department toll-free at 888-624-8373, visit us online, or send an email to [email protected]. This free book plus thousands more books are available at http://www.nap.edu. Copyright © National Academy of Sciences. Permission is granted for this material to be shared for noncommercial, educational purposes, provided that this notice appears on the reproduced materials, the Web address of the online, full authoritative version is retained, and copies are not altered. To disseminate otherwise or to republish requires written permission from the National Academies Press. Space Studies Board Jump to Search: Top NewsJump to Science in the Subscribe to our FREE e- Headlines newsletter! NATIONAL ACADEMY OF SCIENCES NATIONAL ACADEMY OF ENGINEERING INSTITUTE OF MEDICINE NATIONAL RESEARCH COUNCIL June 18, 2004 Current Operating Status Assessment of the CRAF and Cassini Science Missions: Letter Report http://www.nap.edu/catalog/12334.html On September 1, 1988, Dr. -
Stardust Comet Flyby
NATIONAL AERONAUTICS AND SPACE ADMINISTRATION Stardust Comet Flyby Press Kit January 2004 Contacts Don Savage Policy/Program Management 202/358-1727 NASA Headquarters, Washington DC Agle Stardust Mission 818/393-9011 Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif. Vince Stricherz Science Investigation 206/543-2580 University of Washington, Seattle, WA Contents General Release ……………………………………......………….......................…...…… 3 Media Services Information ……………………….................…………….................……. 5 Quick Facts …………………………………………..................………....…........…....….. 6 Why Stardust?..................…………………………..................………….....………......... 7 Other Comet Missions ....................................................................................... 10 NASA's Discovery Program ............................................................................... 12 Mission Overview …………………………………….................……….....……........…… 15 Spacecraft ………………………………………………..................…..……........……… 25 Science Objectives …………………………………..................……………...…........….. 34 Program/Project Management …………………………...................…..…..………...... 37 1 2 GENERAL RELEASE: NASA COMET HUNTER CLOSING ON QUARRY Having trekked 3.2 billion kilometers (2 billion miles) across cold, radiation-charged and interstellar-dust-swept space in just under five years, NASA's Stardust spacecraft is closing in on the main target of its mission -- a comet flyby. "As the saying goes, 'We are good to go,'" said project manager Tom Duxbury at NASA's Jet -
The Minor Planet Bulletin
THE MINOR PLANET BULLETIN OF THE MINOR PLANETS SECTION OF THE BULLETIN ASSOCIATION OF LUNAR AND PLANETARY OBSERVERS VOLUME 36, NUMBER 3, A.D. 2009 JULY-SEPTEMBER 77. PHOTOMETRIC MEASUREMENTS OF 343 OSTARA Our data can be obtained from http://www.uwec.edu/physics/ AND OTHER ASTEROIDS AT HOBBS OBSERVATORY asteroid/. Lyle Ford, George Stecher, Kayla Lorenzen, and Cole Cook Acknowledgements Department of Physics and Astronomy University of Wisconsin-Eau Claire We thank the Theodore Dunham Fund for Astrophysics, the Eau Claire, WI 54702-4004 National Science Foundation (award number 0519006), the [email protected] University of Wisconsin-Eau Claire Office of Research and Sponsored Programs, and the University of Wisconsin-Eau Claire (Received: 2009 Feb 11) Blugold Fellow and McNair programs for financial support. References We observed 343 Ostara on 2008 October 4 and obtained R and V standard magnitudes. The period was Binzel, R.P. (1987). “A Photoelectric Survey of 130 Asteroids”, found to be significantly greater than the previously Icarus 72, 135-208. reported value of 6.42 hours. Measurements of 2660 Wasserman and (17010) 1999 CQ72 made on 2008 Stecher, G.J., Ford, L.A., and Elbert, J.D. (1999). “Equipping a March 25 are also reported. 0.6 Meter Alt-Azimuth Telescope for Photometry”, IAPPP Comm, 76, 68-74. We made R band and V band photometric measurements of 343 Warner, B.D. (2006). A Practical Guide to Lightcurve Photometry Ostara on 2008 October 4 using the 0.6 m “Air Force” Telescope and Analysis. Springer, New York, NY. located at Hobbs Observatory (MPC code 750) near Fall Creek, Wisconsin. -
Space Weather
ASTRONOMY AND ASTROPHYSICS LIBRARY Series Editors: G. Börner, Garching, Germany A. Burkert, München, Germany W. B. Burton, Charlottesville, VA, USA and Leiden, The Netherlands M. A. Dopita, Canberra, Australia A. Eckart, Köln, Germany T. Encrenaz, Meudon, France E. K. Grebel, Heidelberg, Germany B. Leibundgut, Garching, Germany J. Lequeux, Paris, France A. Maeder, Sauverny, Switzerland V.Trimble, College Park, MD, and Irvine, CA, USA Kenneth R. Lang The Sun from Space Second Edition 123 Kenneth R. Lang Department of Physics and Astronomy Tufts University Medford MA 02155 USA [email protected] Cover image: Solar cycle magnetic variations. These magnetograms portray the polarity and distribution of the magnetism in the solar photosphere. They were made with the Vacuum Tower Telescope of the National Solar Observatory at Kitt Peak from 8 January 1992, at a maximum in the sunspot cycle (lower left) to 25 July 1999, well into the next maximum (lower right). Each magnetogram shows opposite polarities as darker and brighter than average tint. When the Sun is most active, the number of sunspots is at a maximum, with large bipolar sunspots that are oriented in the east–west (left–right) direction within two parallel bands. At times of low activity (top middle), there are no large sunspots and tiny magnetic fields of different magnetic polarity can be observed all over the photosphere. The haze around the images is the inner solar corona. (Courtesy of Carolus J. Schrijver, NSO, NOAO and NSF.) ISBN: 978-3-540-76952-1 e-ISBN: 978-3-540-76953-8 Library of Congress Control Number: 2008933407 c Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg 2009 This work is subject to copyright. -
Dust-To-Gas and Refractory-To-Ice Mass Ratios of Comet 67P
Dust-to-Gas and Refractory-to-Ice Mass Ratios of Comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko from Rosetta Observations Mathieu Choukroun, Kathrin Altwegg, Ekkehard Kührt, Nicolas Biver, Dominique Bockelée-Morvan, Joanna Drążkowska, Alain Hérique, Martin Hilchenbach, Raphael Marschall, Martin Pätzold, et al. To cite this version: Mathieu Choukroun, Kathrin Altwegg, Ekkehard Kührt, Nicolas Biver, Dominique Bockelée-Morvan, et al.. Dust-to-Gas and Refractory-to-Ice Mass Ratios of Comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko from Rosetta Observations. Journal Space Science Reviews, 2020, 10.1007/s11214-020-00662-1. hal- 03021621 HAL Id: hal-03021621 https://hal.archives-ouvertes.fr/hal-03021621 Submitted on 29 Aug 2021 HAL is a multi-disciplinary open access L’archive ouverte pluridisciplinaire HAL, est archive for the deposit and dissemination of sci- destinée au dépôt et à la diffusion de documents entific research documents, whether they are pub- scientifiques de niveau recherche, publiés ou non, lished or not. The documents may come from émanant des établissements d’enseignement et de teaching and research institutions in France or recherche français ou étrangers, des laboratoires abroad, or from public or private research centers. publics ou privés. Distributed under a Creative Commons Attribution| 4.0 International License Space Sci Rev (2020) 216:44 https://doi.org/10.1007/s11214-020-00662-1 Dust-to-Gas and Refractory-to-Ice Mass Ratios of Comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko from Rosetta Observations Mathieu Choukroun1 · Kathrin Altwegg2 · Ekkehard Kührt3 · Nicolas Biver4 · Dominique Bockelée-Morvan4 · Joanna Dra˙ ˛zkowska5 · Alain Hérique6 · Martin Hilchenbach7 · Raphael Marschall8 · Martin Pätzold9 · Matthew G.G.T. Taylor10 · Nicolas Thomas2 Received: 17 May 2019 / Accepted: 19 March 2020 / Published online: 8 April 2020 © The Author(s) 2020 Abstract This chapter reviews the estimates of the dust-to-gas and refractory-to-ice mass ratios derived from Rosetta measurements in the lost materials and the nucleus of 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko, respectively. -
The Planetary Report) Watching As a Bust
The Board of Dlrec:tolll The naming of comets can, indeed, be a very difficult matter. Traditionally these small, CARL SAGAN BRUCE MURRAY President Vice President icy solar system bodies were named for their discoverers. But because some people are Director" Laboratory Professor of Planetary very persistent (for example, there are four Comets Meier) a particular name is needed for Planetary Studies. Science, California Camell University Institute of Technology for each individu.al comet. Thus, at discovery a comet is assigned a letter designation LOUIS FRIEDMAN HENRY TANNER based on the order of discovery or recovery in a certain year. So, Comet 1982i was the Executive Director Corporate Secretary and 9th comet found in 1982. Later, comets are assigned new names based on their peri Assistant Treasurer, Cafifom;a THOMAS O. PAINE Institute of Technology helion (closest approach to the Sun). 1984 XXll1 was the 23rd comet to pass perihelion Former Administrator. NASA: Chairman, National JOSEPH RYAN in 1984. Confused? Here is a poetic attempt to explain. Commission on Space O'Melveny & Myers Board of Advlsolll DIANE ACKERMAN GARRY E. HUNT poet and author Space -Scientist, THE NAMING OF COMETS (With apologies to T. S. Eliot) United Kingdom ISAAC ASIMOV aulhor HANS MARK BY DAVID H. LEW Chancellor, RICHARD BERENDZEN University of Texas System Presid8nt, American University JAMES MICHENER The naming of Comets is a difficult matter, JACQUES BLAMONT author Chief Scien#st, Centre National It isn't just one of your holiday games; d'Etudes Spatlales, France PHILIP MORRISON Institute Professor, You may think at first I'm mad as a hatter RAY BRADBURY Massachusetts poet and author Institute of Technofogy When I tell you, a comet has THREE DIFFERENT NAMES. -
Chaotic Diffusion of the Vesta Family Induced by Close Encounters with Massive Asteroids
A&A 540, A118 (2012) Astronomy DOI: 10.1051/0004-6361/201118339 & c ESO 2012 Astrophysics Chaotic diffusion of the Vesta family induced by close encounters with massive asteroids J.-B. Delisle and J. Laskar ASD, IMCCE-CNRS UMR8028, Observatoire de Paris, UPMC, 77 Av. Denfert-Rochereau, 75014 Paris, France e-mail: [email protected] Received 26 October 2011 / Accepted 1 March 2012 ABSTRACT We numerically estimate the semi-major axis chaotic diffusion of the Vesta family asteroids induced by close encounters with 11 mas- sive main-belt asteroids: (1) Ceres, (2) Pallas, (3) Juno, (4) Vesta, (7) Iris, (10) Hygiea, (15) Eunomia, (19) Fortuna, (324) Bamberga, (532) Herculina, (704) Interamnia. We find that most of the diffusion is caused by Ceres and Vesta. By extrapolating our results, we are able to constrain the global effect of close encounters with all main-belt asteroids. A comparison of this drift estimate with the one expected for the Yarkovsky effect shows that for asteroids whose diameter is larger than about 40 km, close encounters dominate the Yarkovsky effect. Overall, our findings confirm the standard scenario for the history of the Vesta family. Key words. celestial mechanics – minor planets, asteroids: general – chaos – methods: numerical 1. Introduction (in terms of the number of asteroids taken into account) con- cerned the Gefion and Adeona families and was conducted by It is now common consent that most of the V-type near-Earth as- Carruba et al. (2003). The authors considered all 682 asteroids teroids (NEAs) and howardite, eucrite, and diogenite (HED) me- of radius larger than 50 km for encounters with members of teorites are fragments of a collision between Vesta and another the families. -
Rosetta Observations of Plasma and Dust at Comet 67P
Digital Comprehensive Summaries of Uppsala Dissertations from the Faculty of Science and Technology 1989 Rosetta Observations of Plasma and Dust at Comet 67P FREDRIK LEFFE JOHANSSON ACTA UNIVERSITATIS UPSALIENSIS ISSN 1651-6214 ISBN 978-91-513-1070-1 UPPSALA urn:nbn:se:uu:diva-425953 2020 Dissertation presented at Uppsala University to be publicly examined on Zoom, Friday, 15 January 2021 at 13:15 for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy. The examination will be conducted in English. Faculty examiner: Dr. Nicolas André (IRAP, Toulouse, France). Online defence: https://uu-se.zoom.us/j/67552597754 Contact person for questions about participation is Prof. Mats André 0707-792072 Abstract Johansson, F. L. 2020. Rosetta Observations of Plasma and Dust at Comet 67P. Digital Comprehensive Summaries of Uppsala Dissertations from the Faculty of Science and Technology 1989. 35 pp. Uppsala: Acta Universitatis Upsaliensis. ISBN 978-91-513-1070-1. In-situ observations of cometary plasma are not made because they are easy. The historic ESA Rosetta mission was launched in 2004 and traversed space for ten years before arriving at comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko, which it studied in unprecedented detail for two years. For the Rosetta Dual Langmuir Probe Experiment (LAP), the challenge was increased by the sensors being situated on short booms near a significantly negatively charged spacecraft, which deflects low-energy charged particles away from our instrument. To disentangle the cometary plasma signature in our signal, we create a charging model for the particular design of the Rosetta spacecraft through 3D Particle-in-Cell/hybrid spacecraft-plasma interaction simulations, which also can be applicable to similarly designed spacecraft in cold plasma environments. -
NASA and Planetary Exploration
**EU5 Chap 2(263-300) 2/20/03 1:16 PM Page 263 Chapter Two NASA and Planetary Exploration by Amy Paige Snyder Prelude to NASA’s Planetary Exploration Program Four and a half billion years ago, a rotating cloud of gaseous and dusty material on the fringes of the Milky Way galaxy flattened into a disk, forming a star from the inner- most matter. Collisions among dust particles orbiting the newly-formed star, which humans call the Sun, formed kilometer-sized bodies called planetesimals which in turn aggregated to form the present-day planets.1 On the third planet from the Sun, several billions of years of evolution gave rise to a species of living beings equipped with the intel- lectual capacity to speculate about the nature of the heavens above them. Long before the era of interplanetary travel using robotic spacecraft, Greeks observing the night skies with their eyes alone noticed that five objects above failed to move with the other pinpoints of light, and thus named them planets, for “wan- derers.”2 For the next six thousand years, humans living in regions of the Mediterranean and Europe strove to make sense of the physical characteristics of the enigmatic planets.3 Building on the work of the Babylonians, Chaldeans, and Hellenistic Greeks who had developed mathematical methods to predict planetary motion, Claudius Ptolemy of Alexandria put forth a theory in the second century A.D. that the planets moved in small circles, or epicycles, around a larger circle centered on Earth.4 Only partially explaining the planets’ motions, this theory dominated until Nicolaus Copernicus of present-day Poland became dissatisfied with the inadequacies of epicycle theory in the mid-sixteenth century; a more logical explanation of the observed motions, he found, was to consider the Sun the pivot of planetary orbits.5 1. -
Stardust Comet Dust Resembles Asteroid Materials 24 January 2008
Stardust comet dust resembles asteroid materials 24 January 2008 treasure trove of stardust from other stars and other ancient materials. But in the case of Wild 2, that simply is not the case. By comparing the Stardust samples to cometary interplanetary dust particles (CP IDPs), the team found that two silicate materials normally found in cometary IDPs, together with other primitive materials including presolar stardust grains from other stars, have not been found in the abundances that might be expected in a Kuiper Belt comet like Getting into the details: Stardust impact tracks and light Wild 2. The high-speed capture of the Stardust gas gun impacts of sulfide in aerogel both display metal particles may be partly responsible; but extra beads with sulfide rims indicating that GEMS-like objects refractory components that formed in the inner in Stardust are generated by impact mixing of comet solar nebula within a few astronomical units of the dust with silica aerogel. (left) Stardust GEMS-like sun, indicate that the Stardust material resembles material and (right) light gas gun shot GEM-like material. chondritic meteorites from the asteroid belt. GEMS in cometary IDPs do not contain sulfide-rimmed metal inclusions. [Image credit: Hope Ishii, LLNL] “The material is a lot less primitive and more altered than materials we have gathered through high altitude capture in our own stratosphere from a variety of comets,” said LLNL’s Hope Ishii, lead Contrary to expectations for a small icy body, much author of the research that appears in the Jan. 25 of the comet dust returned by the Stardust mission edition of the journal, Science.