Homogeneous dust emission and jet structure near active cometary nuclei: the case of 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko
- We compute trajectories of dust grains starting from a homogeneous surface activity-profile on a irregularly shaped cometary nucleus. Despite the initially homogeneous dust distribution a collimation in jet-like structures becomes visible. The fine structure is caused by concave topographical features with similar bundles of normal vectors. The model incorporates accurately determined gravitational forces, rotation of the nucleus, and gas-dust interaction. Jet-like dust structures are obtained for a wide range of gas-dust interactions. For the comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko, we derive the global dust distribution around the nucleus and find several areas of agreement between the homogeneous dust emission model and the Rosetta observation of dust jets, including velocity-dependent bending of trajectories.
Author: | Tobias KramerORCiD, Matthias NoackORCiD, Daniel BaumORCiD, Hans-Christian HegeORCiDGND, Eric J. Heller |
---|---|
Document Type: | Article |
Date of first Publication: | 2015/05/29 |
ArXiv Id: | http://arxiv.org/abs/1505.08041 |