Publication Date:
2015-01-24
Description:
The VIRTIS (Visible, Infrared and Thermal Imaging Spectrometer) instrument on board the Rosetta spacecraft has provided evidence of carbon-bearing compounds on the nucleus of the comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko. The very low reflectance of the nucleus (normal albedo of 0.060 +/- 0.003 at 0.55 micrometers), the spectral slopes in visible and infrared ranges (5 to 25 and 1.5 to 5% kA(-1)), and the broad absorption feature in the 2.9-to-3.6-micrometer range present across the entire illuminated surface are compatible with opaque minerals associated with nonvolatile organic macromolecular materials: a complex mixture of various types of carbon-hydrogen and/or oxygen-hydrogen chemical groups, with little contribution of nitrogen-hydrogen groups. In active areas, the changes in spectral slope and absorption feature width may suggest small amounts of water-ice. However, no ice-rich patches are observed, indicating a generally dehydrated nature for the surface currently illuminated by the Sun.〈br /〉〈span class="detail_caption"〉Notes: 〈/span〉Capaccioni, F -- Coradini, A -- Filacchione, G -- Erard, S -- Arnold, G -- Drossart, P -- De Sanctis, M C -- Bockelee-Morvan, D -- Capria, M T -- Tosi, F -- Leyrat, C -- Schmitt, B -- Quirico, E -- Cerroni, P -- Mennella, V -- Raponi, A -- Ciarniello, M -- McCord, T -- Moroz, L -- Palomba, E -- Ammannito, E -- Barucci, M A -- Bellucci, G -- Benkhoff, J -- Bibring, J P -- Blanco, A -- Blecka, M -- Carlson, R -- Carsenty, U -- Colangeli, L -- Combes, M -- Combi, M -- Crovisier, J -- Encrenaz, T -- Federico, C -- Fink, U -- Fonti, S -- Ip, W H -- Irwin, P -- Jaumann, R -- Kuehrt, E -- Langevin, Y -- Magni, G -- Mottola, S -- Orofino, V -- Palumbo, P -- Piccioni, G -- Schade, U -- Taylor, F -- Tiphene, D -- Tozzi, G P -- Beck, P -- Biver, N -- Bonal, L -- Combe, J-Ph -- Despan, D -- Flamini, E -- Fornasier, S -- Frigeri, A -- Grassi, D -- Gudipati, M -- Longobardo, A -- Markus, K -- Merlin, F -- Orosei, R -- Rinaldi, G -- Stephan, K -- Cartacci, M -- Cicchetti, A -- Giuppi, S -- Hello, Y -- Henry, F -- Jacquinod, S -- Noschese, R -- Peter, G -- Politi, R -- Reess, J M -- Semery, A -- New York, N.Y. -- Science. 2015 Jan 23;347(6220):aaa0628. doi: 10.1126/science.aaa0628.〈br /〉〈span class="detail_caption"〉Author address: 〈/span〉Istituto di Astrofisica e Planetologia Spaziali, Istituto Nazionale di Astrofisica (INAF), Rome, Italy. fabrizio.capaccioni@iaps.inaf.it. ; Istituto di Astrofisica e Planetologia Spaziali, Istituto Nazionale di Astrofisica (INAF), Rome, Italy. ; Laboratoire d'Etudes Spatiales et d'Instrumentation en Astrophysique, Observatoire de Paris/CNRS/Universite Pierre et Marie Curie[acute accent over last letter in "Universite"]/Universite Paris-Diderot, Meudon, France. ; Institute for Planetary Research, Deutsches Zentrum fur Luft- und Raumfahrt (DLR), Berlin, Germany. ; Universite Grenoble Alpes, CNRS, Institut de Planetologie et d'Astrophysique de Grenoble, Grenoble, France. ; Osservatorio di Capodimonte, INAF, Napoli, Italy. ; Bear Fight Institute, Winthrop, WA 98862, USA. ; University of California, Los Angeles, Los Angeles, CA 90095, USA. ; European Space Agency (ESA), European Space Research and Technology Centre (ESTEC), Noordwijk, Netherlands. ; Institut d'Astrophysique Spatial, CNRS, Orsay, France. ; Dipartimento di Matematica e Fisica "Ennio De Giorgi," Universita del Salento, Italy. ; Space Research Centre, Polish Academy of Sciences, Warsaw, Poland. ; NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, CA 91109, USA. ; Space Physics Research Laboratory, The University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI 48109, USA. ; Universita di Perugia, Perugia, Italy. ; Lunar Planetary Laboratory, University of Arizona, Tucson, AZ 85721, USA. ; National Central University, Taipei, Taiwan. ; Departement of Physics, Oxford University, Oxford, UK. ; Institute for Planetary Research, Deutsches Zentrum fur Luft- und Raumfahrt (DLR), Berlin, Germany. Free University of Berlin, Institute of Geosciences, Malteserstrasse 74-100, Building Haus A, 12249 Berlin, Germany. ; Universita "Parthenope," Napoli, Italy. ; Helmholtz-Zentrum Berlin fur Materialien und Energie, Berlin, Germany. ; Osservatorio Astrofisico di Arcetri, INAF, Firenze, Italy. ; Agenzia Spaziale Italiana, Rome, Italy. ; NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, CA 91109, USA. Institute for Physical Science and Technology, University of Maryland, College Park, MD 20742, USA. ; Istituto di Radioastronomia, INAF, Bologna, Italy. ; Institut fur Optische Sensorsysteme, DLR, Berlin, Germany.〈br /〉〈span class="detail_caption"〉Record origin:〈/span〉 〈a href="http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/25613895" target="_blank"〉PubMed〈/a〉
Print ISSN:
0036-8075
Electronic ISSN:
1095-9203
Topics:
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Chemistry and Pharmacology
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Medicine
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Natural Sciences in General
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Physics
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