Birth of a comet magnetosphere: A spring of water ions
- Nilsson, Hans
- Stenberg Wieser, G.
- Behar, E.
- Wedlund, C. S.
- Gunell, H.
- Yamauchi, M.
- Lundin, R.
- Barabash, S.
- Wieser, M.
- Carr, C.
- Cupido, Emanuele
- Burch, James L.
- Fedorov, A.
- Sauvaud, J.-A.
- Koskinen, H.
- Kallio, E.
- Lebreton, Jean-Pierre
- Eriksson, A.
- Edberg, N.
- Goldstein, Raymond
- Henri, Pierre
- Koenders, Christoph
- Mokashi, Pat
- Nemeth, Zoltán
- Richter, Ingo
- Szego, K.
- Volwerk, M.
- Vallat, C.
- Rubin, M.
DOIAbstract
http://science.sciencemag.org/content/347/6220/aaa0571.fullInternational audienceThe Rosetta mission shall accompany comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko from a heliocentric distance of >3.6 astronomical units through perihelion passage at 1.25 astronomical units, spanning low and maximum activity levels. Initially, the solar wind permeates the thin comet atmosphere formed from sublimation, until the size and plasma pressure of the ionized atmosphere define its boundaries: A magnetosphere is born. Using the Rosetta Plasma Consortium ion composition analyzer, we trace the evolution from the first detection of water ions to when the atmosphere begins repelling the solar wind (similar to 3.3 astronomical units), and we report the spatial structure ...
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