Rosetta catches dusty organics

Rosetta’s dust-analysing COSIMA (COmetary Secondary Ion Mass Analyser) instrument has made the first unambiguous detection of solid organic matter in the dust particles ejected by Comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko, in the form of complex carbon-bearing molecules.

While organics had already been detected in situ on the comet’s surface by instruments on-board Philae and from orbit by Rosetta’s ROSINA , those were both in the form of gases resulting from the sublimation of ices. By contrast, COSIMA has made its detections in solid dust.

Their presence was only ever hinted at in previous comet missions, which flew by their targets at high speed and, as a result, disrupted the particles, making characterisation challenging. But Rosetta is orbiting Comet 67P/C-G and can catch dust particles moving at low speed.

Optical image of two of the dust grains collected and analysed by COSIMA, named Kenneth and Juliette, which show the signature of carbon-based organics. They were collected in May and October 2015 respectively. Credits: ESA/Rosetta/MPS for COSIMA Team MPS/CSNSM/UNIBW/TUORLA/IWF/IAS/ESA/BUW/MPE/LPC2E/LCM/FMI/UTU/LISA/UOFC/vH&S/ Fray et al (2016)

“Our analysis reveals carbon in a far more complex form than expected,” remarked Hervé Cottin, one of the authors of the paper reporting the result that is published in Nature today. “It is so complex, we can’t give it a proper formula or a name!”

The organic signatures of seven particles are presented in the paper, which the COSIMA team say are representative of the two hundred plus grains analysed so far.

The carbon is found to be mixed with other previously reported elements such as sodium, magnesium, aluminium, silicon, calcium and iron. It is bound in very large macromolecular compounds similar to the insoluble organic matter found in carbonaceous chondrite meteorites that have fallen to Earth, but with a major difference: there is much more hydrogen found in the comet’s samples than in meteorites.

But as this kind of meteorite is associated with reasonably well-processed parent bodies such as asteroids, it is reasonable to assume that they lost their hydrogen due to heating. By contrast, comets must have avoided such significant heating to retain their hydrogen, and therefore must contain more primitive material.

Comparing the spectra determined by COSIMA for the dust particles Kenneth and Juliette with the composition of organic matter (Insoluble Organic Matter, IOM) in the Murchison chondritic meteorite. The detections of hydrogen (H), Sodium (Na), Silicon (Si) and Iron (Fe) are also indicated. The red spectra are measured on the cometary particles while the black ones are measured next to them, and are representative of the instrument itself. Credits: ESA/Rosetta/MPS for COSIMA Team MPS/CSNSM/UNIBW/TUORLA/IWF/IAS/ESA/BUW/MPE/LPC2E/LCM/FMI/UTU/LISA/UOFC/vH&S/ Fray et al (2016)

From analyses of meteorites and laboratory simulations, the team was also expecting to identify a wide diversity of organic material in Comet 67P/C-G, ranging from very small molecules to heavy (or ‘high molecular weight’) organics.

Although Rosetta’s ROSINA and Philae’s PTOLEMY and COSAC instruments detected numerous low-molecular weight volatile organic molecules, COSIMA only saw very large carbon-bearing macromolecules in the dust particles, with nothing in between. This suggests potentially different sources for the lightweight volatile and heavier refractory carbonaceous material detected in the comet.

“Although we cannot know if the organics seen in these dust particles were created in the interstellar medium before the protoplanetary nebula came together, or in the protoplanetary disk during early Solar System formation, COSIMA’s dust grains are certainly witnesses to early formation processes, including that of the comet itself,” says Nicolas Fray, first author of the paper.

“These particles have remained pristine and untouched for billions of years until they were released in the days or weeks before being ‘caught’ by COSIMA,” adds Martin Hilchenbach, principal investigator of COSIMA. “The results add to the growing picture that Comet 67P/C-G contains some of the most primitive material from our Solar System’s early history.”

“High molecular weight organic matter in the particles of comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko” by N. Fray et al is published in Nature.

 

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NASA’s Record-breaking Astronaut, Crewmates Safely Return to Earth

NASA astronaut and Expedition 48 Commander Jeff Williams returned to Earth Tuesday after his U.S. record-breaking mission aboard the International Space Station.

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NASA Awards Grants to Inspire Mars Generation of Explorers, Scientists

NASA is awarding approximately $3 million in grants to three informal education organizations to help inspire the next generation in science, technology, engineering and math (STEM) studies and careers as the agency progresses on its Journey to Mars.

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NASA Awards Safety, Mission Assurance Support Services Contract

NASA has awarded a contract to Alphaport, Inc., of Cleveland, for safety and mission assurance support services at its Kennedy Space Center in Florida, Headquarters in Washington and other sites supported by Kennedy programs and projects.

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What does the Rosetta mission mean to you?

Submit your entry at http://ift.tt/2c3orHm

To celebrate the success of Rosetta and to keep a long-lasting record of its impact on the world, we invite you to share your personal experiences and feelings about how the mission has influenced you.

Perhaps you followed the mission via this blog, the news or other social media channels, and found a special link between the spacecraft visiting Comet 67P/Churyumov–Gerasimenko and your own experience.

Maybe you've been stimulated to create art, music, or a theatrical production, or perhaps you brought Rosetta into your every day life at home through creative activities or games with your children. Or did you learn about Rosetta at school? Maybe you based a project on Rosetta and Philae’s adventures, or even made a further education or career choice inspired by the mission.

To get some idea of what you’ve been up to, we invite you to tell us and the world what this extraordinary mission has meant to you over the past few months/years, by contributing to the newly-opened Rosetta Legacy tumblr page.

Submissions can be in the form of text, images, video files or links (including links to audio material): anything that expresses your thoughts, feelings or personal experiences inspired by Rosetta.

Plush toy inspired by the Rosetta & Philae cartoon characters (also available on www.rosettashop.eu)

Each week, we will select up to five spot prize winners from the most recent submissions to receive a Rosetta and Philae plush toy.

We will accept submissions until 7 October 2016, but those received before 21 September will also be in with a chance to be showcased during the live programme of Rosetta’s end-of mission-event that will be streamed from ESA's European Space Operations Centre (ESOC) in Darmstadt, Germany, on 30 September.

In addition, out of all the submitted contributions, ESA will select one top prize winner who will be invited for a special visit to the European Space Research and Technology Centre (ESTEC), ESA's technical ‘heart’ located in Noordwijk, The Netherlands.

We look forward to receiving your entries and hearing all about your experience with Rosetta!

Rules regarding the competition aspect of the campaign are provided here.

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Philae found!

Less than a month before the end of the mission, Rosetta’s high-resolution camera has revealed the Philae lander wedged into a dark crack on Comet 67P/Churyumov–Gerasimenko.

The images were taken on 2 September by the OSIRIS narrow-angle camera as the orbiter came within 2.7 km of the surface and clearly show the main body of the lander, along with two of its three legs.

The images also provide proof of Philae’s orientation, making it clear why establishing communications was so difficult following its landing on 12 November 2014.

Close-up of the Philae lander, imaged by Rosetta’s OSIRIS narrow-angle camera on 2 September 2016 from a distance of 2.7 km. The image scale is about 5 cm/pixel. Philae’s 1 m-wide body and two of its three legs can be seen extended from the body. The images also provide proof of Philae’s orientation.
The image is a zoom from a wider-scene, and has been interpolated.
Credits: ESA/Rosetta/MPS for OSIRIS Team MPS/UPD/LAM/IAA/SSO/INTA/UPM/DASP/IDA

“With only a month left of the Rosetta mission, we are so happy to have finally imaged Philae, and to see it in such amazing detail,” says Cecilia Tubiana of the OSIRIS camera team, the first person to see the images when they were downlinked from Rosetta yesterday.

“After months of work, with the focus and the evidence pointing more and more to this lander candidate, I’m very excited and thrilled that we finally have this all-important picture of Philae sitting in Abydos,” says ESA’s Laurence O’Rourke, who has been coordinating the search efforts over the last months at ESA, with the OSIRIS and SONC/CNES teams.

Philae was last seen when it first touched down at Agilkia, bounced and then flew for another two hours before ending up at a location later named Abydos, on the comet’s smaller lobe.

After three days, Philae’s primary battery was exhausted and the lander went into hibernation, only to wake up again and communicate briefly with Rosetta in June and July 2015 as the comet came closer to the Sun and more power was available.

An OSIRIS narrow-angle camera image taken on 2 September 2016 from a distance of 2.7 km in which Philae was definitively identified. The image has been processed to adjust the dynamic range in order to see Philae while maintaining the details of the comet’s surface. Philae is located at the far right of the image, just above centre. The image scale is about 5 cm/pixel. Credits: ESA/Rosetta/MPS for OSIRIS Team MPS/UPD/LAM/IAA/SSO/INTA/UPM/DASP/IDA

However, until today, the precise location was not known. Radio ranging data tied its location down to an area spanning a few tens of metres, but a number of potential candidate objects identified in relatively low-resolution images taken from larger distances could not be analysed in detail until recently.

While most candidates could be discarded from analysis of the imagery and other techniques, evidence continued to build towards one particular target, which is now confirmed in images taken unprecedentedly close to the surface of the comet.

At 2.7 km, the resolution of the OSIRIS narrow-angle camera is about 5 cm/pixel, sufficient to reveal characteristic features of Philae’s 1 m-sized body and its legs, as seen in these definitive pictures.

“This remarkable discovery comes at the end of a long, painstaking search,” says Patrick Martin, ESA’s Rosetta Mission Manager. “We were beginning to think that Philae would remain lost forever. It is incredible we have captured this at the final hour.”

“This wonderful news means that we now have the missing ‘ground-truth’ information needed to put Philae’s three days of science into proper context, now that we know where that ground actually is!” says Matt Taylor, ESA’s Rosetta project scientist.

A number of Philae’s features can be made out in this image taken by Rosetta’s OSIRIS narrow-angle camera image on 2 September 2016, including one of the CIVA panoramic imaging cameras, the SD2 drill and SESAME-DIM (Surface Electric Sounding and Acoustic Monitoring Experiment Dust Impact Monitor). Credits: ESA/Rosetta/MPS for OSIRIS Team MPS/UPD/LAM/IAA/SSO/INTA/UPM/DASP/IDA

“Now that the lander search is finished we feel ready for Rosetta’s landing, and look forward to capturing even closer images of Rosetta’s touchdown site,” adds Holger Sierks, principal investigator of the OSIRIS camera.

The discovery comes less than a month before Rosetta descends to the comet’s surface. On 30 September, the orbiter will be sent on a final one-way mission to investigate the comet from close up, including the open pits in the Ma’at region, where it is hoped that critical observations will help to reveal secrets of the body’s interior structure.

Further information on the search that led to the discovery of Philae, along with additional images, will be made available soon.

 

For contact information, please see the story on the main ESA web portal.

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CometWatch 22 August

This week’s CometWatch entry was taken with Rosetta’s NAVCAM on 22 August 2016, when the spacecraft was 6.8 km from the centre of Comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko.

The average distance to the surface is about 5.6 km, and with an image scale of 0.5 m/pixel, the image measures about 500 m across.

Enhanced NAVCAM image of Comet 67P/C-G taken on 22 August 2016, 6.8 km from the nucleus. The scale at the surface is about 0.5 m/pixel and the image measures about 500 m across. Credits: ESA/Rosetta/NAVCAM – CC BY-SA IGO 3.0.

The image shows part of the Ma’at region, close to where it transitions into Anuket and Hathor regions on the comet’s small lobe. It shows a beautiful contrast between smooth, dust covered surfaces, and rather angular outcropping terrain and scattered debris.

For more close-up images taken in the last week, be sure to check the OSIRIS image of the day website.

The original 1024 x 1024 pixel image is provided below:

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Video report: the end is in sight

Post-perihelion changes, close flybys, and preparing for end of mission!

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NASA Selects Proposals for Advancing Adaptive Space Robotics, 3-D Printing and Other Key Exploration Technologies

NASA has selected 21 research and technology proposals from American small businesses and research institutions that will enable NASA's future missions into the solar system and beyond while benefiting America's technology-driven economy here on Earth.

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Watch Live as NASA Astronaut, Two Crewmates Return to Earth

Three International Space Station crew members are scheduled to return to Earth on Tuesday, Sept. 6. NASA Television will provide coverage of their departure from the orbital outpost and return home, beginning at 9 a.m. EDT Tuesday, Sept. 6.

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NASA Extends Contract for Hubble Space Telescope Mission Operations

NASA has awarded a contract extension to Lockheed Martin Space Systems Corporation (LMSSC) of Greenbelt, Maryland, to continue maintaining the health and safety of the agency’s Hubble Space Telescope observatory through the next phase of its science mission.

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