GIADA On-Board Rosetta: Early Dust Grain Detections and Dust Coma Characterization of Comet 67P/C-G

Abstract:

GIADA (Grain Impact Analyzer and Dust Accumulator) flying on-board Rosetta is devoted to study the cometary dust environment of 67P/Churiumov-Gerasimenko. GIADA is composed of 3 sub-systems: the GDS (Grain Detection System), based on grain detection through light scattering; an IS (Impact Sensor), giving momentum measurement detecting the impact on a sensed plate connected with 5 piezoelectric sensors; the MBS (MicroBalances System), constituted of 5 Quartz Crystal Microbalances (QCMs), giving cumulative deposited dust mass by measuring the variations of the sensors’ frequency. The combination of the measurements performed by these 3 subsystems provides: the number, the mass, the momentum and the velocity distribution of dust grains emitted from the cometary nucleus.No prior in situ dust dynamical measurements at these close distances from the nucleus and starting from such large heliocentric distances are available up to date. We present here the first results obtained from the beginning of the Rosetta scientific phase. We will report dust grains early detection at about 800 km from the nucleus in August 2014 and the following measurements that allowed us characterizing the 67P/C-G dust environment at distances less than 100 km from the nucleus and single grains dynamical properties.

 Acknowledgements. GIADA was built by a consortium led by the Univ. Napoli “Parthenope” & INAF-Oss. Astr. Capodimonte, IT, in collaboration with the Inst. de Astrofisica de Andalucia, ES, Selex-ES s.p.a. and SENER. GIADA is presently managed & operated by Ist. di Astrofisica e Planetologia Spaziali-INAF, IT. GIADA was funded and managed by the Agenzia Spaziale Italiana, IT, with a support of the Spanish Ministry of Education and Science MEC, ES. GIADA was developped from a PI proposal supported by the University of Kent; sci. & tech. contribution given by CISAS, IT, Lab. d'Astr. Spat., FR, and Institutions from UK, IT, FR, DE and USA. We thank the RSGS/ESAC, RMOC/ESOC & Rosetta Project/ESTEC for their outstanding work. Science support provided by NASA through the US Rosetta Project managed by JPL/California Institute of Technology. GIADA calibrated data will be available through the ESA’s PSA web site (www.rssd.esa.int/index.php?project=PSA&page=index). Thanks Angioletta.