The Rosetta Ion and Electron Sensor (IES)measurement of the development of pickup ions from comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko
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Issue Date
2015-05-05Author
Goldstein, R.
Burch, J. L.
Mokashi, P.
Broiles, T.
Mandt, K.
Hanley, J.
Cravens, Thomas Edward
Rahmati, Ali
Samara, M.
Clark, G.
Hässig, M.
Webster, J. M.
Publisher
American Geophysical Union
Type
Article
Article Version
Scholarly/refereed, publisher version
Rights
©2015. American Geophysical Union. All Rights Reserved.
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Show full item recordAbstract
The Rosetta Ion and Electron Sensor (IES) has been measuring solar wind ions intermittently since exiting from hibernation in May 2014. On 19 August, when Rosetta was ~80 km from the comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko, which was ~3.5 AU from the Sun, IES began to see ions at its lowest energy range, ~4–10 eV. We identify these as ions created from neutral species emitted by the comet nucleus, photoionized by solar UV radiation in the neighborhood of the Rosetta spacecraft (S/C), and attracted by the small negative potential of the S/C resulting from the population of thermal electrons. Later, IES began to see higher-energy ions that we identify as having been picked up and accelerated by the solar wind. IES continues to measure changes in the solar wind and the development of the pickup ion structure.
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Citation
Goldstein, R., J. L. Burch, P. Mokashi, T. Broiles, K. Mandt, J. Hanley, T. Cravens, A. Rahmati, M. Samara, G. Clark, M. Hässig, and J. M. Webster (2015), The Rosetta Ion and Electron Sensor (IES) measurement of the development of pickup ions from comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko. Geophys. Res. Lett., 42, 3093–3099. doi: 10.1002/2015GL063939.
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