IMAGING OBSERVATIONS OF THE HYDROGEN COMA OF COMET 67P/CHURYUMOV–GERASIMENKO IN 2015 SEPTEMBER BY THE PROCYON/LAICA

Abstract

The water production rate of a comet is one of the fundamental parameters necessary to understand cometary activity when a comet approaches the Sun within 2.5 au, because water is the most abundant icy material in the cometary nucleus. Wide-field imaging observations of the hydrogen Ly α emission in comet 67P/Churyumov–Gerasimenko were performed by the Lyman Alpha Imaging Camera (LAICA) on board the 50 kg class micro spacecraft, the Proximate Object Close Flyby with Optical Navigation ( PROCYON ), on UT 2015 September 7.40, 12.37, and 13.17 (corresponding to 25.31, 30.28, and 31.08 days after the perihelion passage of the comet, respectively). We derive the water production rates, , of the comet from Ly α images of the comet by using a 2D axi-symmetric Direct Simulation Monte-Carlo model of the atomic hydrogen coma; (1.46 ± 0.47) × 10 28 , (1.24 ± 0.40) × 10 28 , and (1.30 ± 0.42) × 10 28 molecules s −1 on 7.40, 12.37, and 13.17 September, respectively. These values are comparable to the values from in situ measurements by the Rosetta instruments in the 2015 apparition and the ground-based and space observations during the past apparitions. The comet did not show significant secular change in average water production rates just after the perihelion passage for the apparitions from 1982 to 2015. We emphasize that the measurements of absolute based on the wide field of view (e.g., by the LAICA/ PROCYON ) are so important to judge the soundness of the coma models used to infer based on in situ measurements by spacecraft, like the Rosetta .