WISE/NEOWISE Preliminary Analysis and Highlights of the 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko Near Nucleus Environs

TL;DR

This study uses WISE infrared data to analyze the dust environment and nucleus properties of comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko at specific heliocentric distances, providing insights relevant to the Rosetta mission.

Contribution

First infrared analysis of comet 67P's dust environment at outbound heliocentric distances, estimating dust size distribution, nucleus size, and albedo.

Findings

Large dust grains dominate the coma at observed distances.

Low CO2 production detected at 3.32 AU, none at 4.18 AU.

Nucleus radius estimated at 1.82 km with low albedo.

Abstract

On January 18-19 and June 28-29 of 2010, the Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer (WISE) spacecraft imaged the Rosetta mission target, comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko. We present a preliminary analysis of the images, which provide a characterization of the dust environment at heliocentric distances similar to those planned for the initial spacecraft encounter, but on the outbound leg of its orbit rather than the inbound. Broad-band photometry yields low levels of CO2 production at a comet heliocentric distance of 3.32 AU and no detectable production at 4.18 AU. We find that at these heliocentric distances, large dust grains with mean grain diameters on the order of a millimeter or greater dominate the coma and evolve to populate the tail. This is further supported by broad-band photometry centered on the nucleus, which yield an estimated differential dust particle size distribution with a power law relation that is considerably shallower than average. We set a 3-sigma upper limit constraint on the albedo of the large-grain dust at <= 0.12. Our best estimate of the nucleus radius (1.82 +/- 0.20 km) and albedo (0.04 +/- 0.01) are in agreement with measurements previously reported in the literature.