What is it about?
The Rosetta spacecraft reached comet 67P in August 2014, and then followed the comet for more than 2 years. In this paper we report observations of how the solar wind interacts with the comet atmosphere. The solar wind is a stream of charged particles continuously emitted by the sun, moving with a velocity of about 400 km/s. We show data from the first part of the mission, when the comet was approaching the Sun. The part of the comet atmosphere that is electrically charged, the ions of the atmosphere, get accelerated by the electric field of the solar wind. We observed how most of these ions flow away from the sun, tailward of the comet.
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Why is it important?
Solar wind interaction with planetary atmospheres is important for the atmosphere evolution over billions of years. The solar wind interacction with the comet atmosphere lets us examine this interaction in unprecedented detail. The solar wind and accelerated cometary ions also affect the near comet environment and the surface of the comet.
Perspectives
This was the first paper where we could show an overview of the comet environment. It contains the first observations of many of the phenomena we observed during the mission. There is now a follow up paper showing the ion environment of comet 67P during the entire Rosetta mission, but there are details and information in this first paper that makes it still relevant.
dr Hans Nilsson
Institutet for rymdfysik
Read the Original
This page is a summary of: Evolution of the ion environment of comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko, Astronomy and Astrophysics, October 2015, EDP Sciences,
DOI: 10.1051/0004-6361/201526142.
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