Report

Teaser, summary, work performed and final results

Periodic Reporting for period 1 - CAstRA (Comet and Asteroid Re-Shaping through Activity)

Teaser

Comets and asteroids are remnants from the formation of planets in the early time of our solar system. While they likely represent some of the least altered samples of material in the protoplanetary disc, these bodies have been and continuously are subject to various processes...

Summary

Comets and asteroids are remnants from the formation of planets in the early time of our solar system. While they likely represent some of the least altered samples of material in the protoplanetary disc, these bodies have been and continuously are subject to various processes that change them. And observable manifestation of such processes is called activity, the release of gas and dust to space. Key goals of this project is to obtain a comprehensive overview of the various processes underlying activity in comets and asteroids, investigate how ice is stored in them, and characterise the ejected dust. The project relies on data from the European Space Agency\'s Rosetta mission that visited comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko between 2014 and 2016, and on Earth-based telescope observations of active asteroids, complemented by numerical modelling of dust physical and compositional properties and dynamics. An additional aim of the project is to understand to which extent it is possible to generalise Rosetta results to a wider sample of comets or even asteroids.

Work performed

During the first reporting period (months 1 - 18), a new comprehensive numerical model has been developed to describe the interaction of light with cometary matter. The model simultaneously calculates the optical properties of large aggregated dust-particles and their thermally excited radiation, such that it can be tested against a variety of data sets from complementary Rosetta instruments. The model has been applied to interpret optical and near-infrared measurements by OSIRIS and VIRTIS. The measurements were found to be consistent with large aggregated particles composed of large silicate grains embedded in smaller carbon-rich grains.
To study the motion of debris emitted from comet 67P, an algorithm has been developed to track the motion of individual boulders that fly in the coma across a series of images. This paved the way to studying the source regions and ejection circumstances of these boulders.
Telescope time on Hubble and the Very Large Telescope of the European Southern Observatory has been awarded to project members to observe the active asteroids 288P, P/2018 P3, P/2019 A4 and P/2019 A7. Initial results about the two former objects are being prepared for publication.

Final results

Expected results until the end of the project: We expect to identify the source and sink regions of dust and debris on comet 67P, and the forces governing the motion of dust and debris off the surface. We also expect to constrain the ice content of cometary debris. We expect to better understand the interaction between fast rotation, activity and binary formation in active asteroids, in particular in the binary system 288P.

Website & more info

More info: https://www.mps.mpg.de/5304212/aktivitaet-von-kometen-und-asteroiden.