Abstract
Rosetta is ESA's new comet orbiter mission, launched in March 2004 and
currently en route to Jupiter-family comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko.
The probe will rendezvous with the comet in 2014 and remain in orbit
around the nucleus for on-going detailed physical and compositional
analysis. Pre-encounter observations of the target are important for
characterization of the heliocentric light-curve behaviour and the
physical properties of the nucleus, information that is critical for
mission planning. The nucleus was first characterized using HST
observations in 2003 (Lamy et al. 2006) and observed directly in May
2005 by ground based telescopes (Lowry et al. 2006) when it was at 5.6
AU from the Sun. An extensive database of nucleus observations have
since been acquired, not only from large ground-based telescopes like
the ESO VLT (Tubiana et al. 2008 & 2011), but also from Spitzer
(Kelley et al. 2006 & 2009; Lamy et al. 2008).
Original language | English |
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Pages | 1848 |
Publication status | Published - 01 Oct 2011 |