Encounters of the dust trails of comet 45P/Honda-Mrkos-Pajdusakova with Venus in 2006

Vaubaillon, Jérémie; Christou, Apostolos

doi:10.1051/0004-6361:20065040

Cited by 9 publications

(6 citation statements)

References 21 publications

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“…By an interesting coincidence, from studying the orbital data of fireballs associated with the α Capricornids meteor stream in Earth's atmosphere, Hasegawa (2001) concluded that exactly our three candidate comets 45P/H-M-P, 72P/D-F , and 141P/Machholz 2-A could be associated with this meteor stream, out of six possible candidates including three additional comet and asteroid candidates. Comet 45P/H-M-P was also predicted to be the source of a meteor shower in the Venus atmosphere (Vaubaillon & Christou 2006).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 98%

Helios spacecraft data revisited: detection of cometary meteoroid trails by following in situ dust impacts

Krüger

Strub

Sommer

et al. 2020

A&A

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Context. Cometary meteoroid trails exist in the vicinity of comets, forming a fine structure of the interplanetary dust cloud. The trails consist predominantly of the largest cometary particles (with sizes of approximately 0.1 mm-1 cm), which are ejected at low speeds and remain very close to the comet orbit for several revolutions around the Sun. In the 1970s, two Helios spacecraft were launched towards the inner Solar System. The spacecraft were equipped with in situ dust sensors which measured the distribution of interplanetary dust in the inner Solar System for the first time. Recently, when re-analysing the Helios data, a clustering of seven impacts was found, detected by Helios in a very narrow region of space at a true anomaly angle of 135 ± 1 • , which the authors considered as potential cometary trail particles. However, at the time, this hypothesis could not be studied further. Aims. We re-analyse these candidate cometary trail particles in the Helios dust data to investigate the possibility that some or all of them indeed originate from cometary trails and we constrain their source comets. Methods. The Interplanetary Meteoroid Environment for eXploration (IMEX) dust streams in space model is a new and recently published universal model for cometary meteoroid streams in the inner Solar System. We use IMEX to study the traverses of cometary trails made by Helios. Results. During ten revolutions around the Sun, the Helios spacecraft intersected 13 cometary trails. For the majority of these traverses the predicted dust fluxes are very low. In the narrow region of space where Helios detected the candidate dust particles, the spacecraft repeatedly traversed the trails of comets 45P/Honda-Mrkos-Pajdušáková and 72P/Denning-Fujikawa with relatively high predicted dust fluxes. The analysis of the detection times and particle impact directions shows that four detected particles are compatible with an origin from these two comets. By combining measurements and simulations we find a dust spatial density in these trails of approximately 10 −8-10 −7 m −3. Conclusions. The identification of potential cometary trail particles in the Helios data greatly benefited from the clustering of trail traverses in a rather narrow region of space. The in situ detection and analysis of meteoroid trail particles which can be traced back to their source bodies by spacecraft-based dust analysers provides a new opportunity for remote compositional analysis of comets and asteroids without the necessity to fly a spacecraft to or even land on those celestial bodies. This provides new science opportunities for future missions like DESTINY + (Demonstration and Experiment of Space Technology for INterplanetary voYage with Phaethon fLyby and dUst Science), Europa Clipper, and the Interstellar Mapping and Acceleration Probe.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 98%

Helios spacecraft data revisited: detection of cometary meteoroid trails by following in situ dust impacts

Krüger

Strub

Sommer

et al. 2020

A&A

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…By an interesting coincidence, from studying the orbital data of fireballs associated with the α Capricornids meteor stream in Earth's atmosphere Hasegawa (2001) concluded that exactly our three candidate comets 45P/H-M-P, 72P/D-F and 141P/Machholz 2-A, among three additional comet and asteroid candidates, could be associated with this meteor stream. Comet 45P/H-M-P was also predicted to be the source of a meteor shower in the Venus atmosphere (Vaubaillon & Christou 2006).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 98%

Helios spacecraft data revisited: Detection of cometary meteoroid trails by in-situ dust impacts

Krüger,

Strub,

Sommer

et al. 2020

Preprint

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Context. Cometary meteoroid trails exist in the vicinity of comets, forming fine structure of the interplanetary dust cloud. The trails consist predominantly of the largest cometary particles (with sizes of approximately 0.1 mm to 1 cm) which are ejected at low speeds and remain very close to the comet orbit for several revolutions around the Sun. In the 1970s two Helios spacecraft were launched towards the inner solar system. The spacecraft were equipped with in-situ dust sensors which measured the distribution of interplanetary dust in the inner solar system for the first time. When re-analysing the Helios data, Altobelli et al. (2006) recognized a clustering of seven impacts, detected by Helios in a very narrow region of space at a true anomaly angle of 135 ± 1 • , which the authors considered as potential cometary trail particles. At the time, however, this hypothesis could not be studied further. Aims. We re-analyse these candidate cometary trail particles in the Helios dust data to investigate the possibility that some or all of them indeed originate from cometary trails and we constrain their source comets. Methods. The Interplanetary Meteoroid Environment for eXploration (IMEX) dust streams in space model is a new universal model for cometary meteoroid streams in the inner solar system, developed by Soja et al. (2015b). We use IMEX to study cometary trail traverses by Helios. Results. During ten revolutions around the Sun, the Helios spacecraft intersected 13 cometary trails. For the majority of these traverses the predicted dust fluxes are very low. In the narrow region of space where Helios detected the candidate dust particles, the spacecraft repeatedly traversed the trails of comets 45P/Honda-Mrkos-Pajdušáková and 72P/Denning-Fujikawa with relatively high predicted dust fluxes. The analysis of the detection times and particle impact directions shows that four detected particles are compatible with an origin from these two comets. By combining measurements and simulations we find a dust spatial density in these trails of approximately 10 −8 m −3 to 10 −7 m −3 .Conclusions. The identification of potential cometary trail particles in the Helios data greatly benefitted from the clustering of trail traverses in a rather narrow region of space. The in-situ detection and analysis of meteoroid trail particles which can be traced back to their source bodies by spacecraft-based dust analysers opens a new window to remote compositional analysis of comets and asteroids without the necessity to fly a spacecraft to or even land on those celestial bodies. This provides new science opportunities for future missions like Destiny + , Europa Clipper and IMAP.

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“…The method used here was developed by Vaubaillon et al (2005a,b) for use at the Earth and adapted for the Martian orbit as was done in Vaubaillon & Christou (2006) for the case of Venus. We integrate numerically the dynamical evolution of test particles initially ejected from the cometary nucleus, and identify instances where significant fluxes of stream meteoroids may be incident at Mars, both in the recent past and in the future.…”

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Such a method (Vaubaillon et al 2005a,b) was used recently to study the evolution of dust trails ejected from comet 45P/Honda-Mrkos-Pajdusakova and characterise their encounter circumstances with Venus during the comet's close approach to that planet in 2006 (Vaubaillon & Christou 2006). …”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

The dust trail complex of comet 79P/du Toit-Hartley and meteor outbursts at Mars

Christou¹,

Vaubaillon²,

Withers³

2007

A&A

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Aims. Meteoroid trails ejected during past perihelion passages of the Mars-orbit-intersecting comet 79P/du Toit-Hartley have the potential of generating meteor outbursts in the Martian atmosphere. Depending on timing and intensity, the effects of these outbursts may be detectable by instrumentation operating in the vicinity of Mars. We aim to generate predictions for meteor activity in the martian atmosphere related to that comet; to search for evidence, in planetary mission data, that such activity took place; and to make predictions for potentially detectable future activity. Methods. We have modelled the stream by integrating numerically the states of particle ensembles, each ensemble representing a trail of meteoroids ejected from the comet during 39 perihelion passages from 1803, and propagated them forward in time, concentrating on those particles that physically approach Mars in the recent past and near future. Results. We find several instances where meteor outbursts of low to moderate intensity may have taken place at Mars since 1997. A search through Mars Global Surveyor (MGS) radio science data during two periods in 2003 and 2005 when data coverage was available showed that a plasma layer did indeed form in the martian ionosphere for a period of a few hours in April 2003 as a direct consequence of the predicted outburst. The apparent failure to identify such an event in 2005 could be due to those meteoroids ablating lower in the atmosphere or that the cometary dust follows a different particle size distribution than what was assumed. Our study highlights the need for further theoretical modelling of the response of the martian ionosphere to a time-variable meteoroid flux, observations of the comet itself and, most importantly, regular monitoring of the martian ionosphere during future outbursts predicted by our model.

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Encounters of the dust trails of comet 45P/Honda-Mrkos-Pajdusakova with Venus in 2006

Cited by 9 publications

References 21 publications

Helios spacecraft data revisited: detection of cometary meteoroid trails by following in situ dust impacts

Helios spacecraft data revisited: detection of cometary meteoroid trails by following in situ dust impacts

Helios spacecraft data revisited: Detection of cometary meteoroid trails by in-situ dust impacts

The dust trail complex of comet 79P/du Toit-Hartley and meteor outbursts at Mars

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