Prevailing dust-transport directions on comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko

Tobias Kramer, Matthias Noack
(Submitted on 5 Nov 2015)

Dust transport and deposition behind larger boulders on the comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko (67P/C-G) have been observed by the Rosetta mission. We present a mechanism for dust transport vectors based on a homogenous surface activity model incorporating in detail the topography of 67P/C-G. The combination of gravitation, gas drag, and Coriolis force leads to specific dust transfer pathways, which for higher dust velocities fuel the near nucleus coma. By distributing dust sources homogeneously across the whole cometary surface, we derive a global dust-transport map of 67P/C-G. The transport vectors are in agreement with the reported wind-tail directions in the Philae descent area.

Comments: 7 pages, 3 figures
Subjects: Earth and Planetary Astrophysics (astro-ph.EP)
Journal reference: Astrophysical Journal Letters, 813, L33 (2015)
DOI: 10.1088/2041-8205/813/2/L33
Cite as: arXiv:1604.00876 [astro-ph.EP] (or arXiv:1604.00876v1 [astro-ph.EP] for this version)
Submission history
From: Tobias Kramer
[v1] Thu, 5 Nov 2015 11:51:09 GMT (1042kb,D)
http://arxiv.org/abs/1604.00876