#magnetic_field

A comet’s life – a new #sonification from #Rosetta’s #rpc data
▻http://blogs.esa.int/rosetta/2016/09/29/a-comets-life-a-new-sonification-from-rosettas-rpc-data

In 2014, shortly after Rosetta’s arrival at #Comet_67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko, the magnetometer on the Rosetta #plasma Consortium (RPC) suite of #Instruments, #RPC-Mag, detected some surprising oscillations in the plasma surrounding the nucleus, revealing the comet’s mysterious “song”. Now, after two years of monitoring the plasma around the comet, the RPC team present a new song based on data collected during the entire mission, describing the comet’s evolution from the point of view of Rosetta’s magnetometer. While the nucleus of Comet 67P/C-G is itself not magnetised, as measured by plasma instruments on both Rosetta and the lander Philae, it is embedded in the interplanetary #magnetic_field carried throughout the Solar System by the solar wind – a continuous flow of electrically charged (...)

#Audio #Fun_stuff #Science #diamagnetic_cavity #music #singing_comet #waves

The surprising #comet
▻http://blogs.esa.int/rosetta/2016/09/26/the-surprising-comet

As #Rosetta began homing in on #Comet_67P/Churyumov–Gerasimenko in the weeks leading up to its arrival in August 2014, it became very clear that this was no ordinary comet. But its striking shape was only just the beginning of the comet’s surprises. After more than two years spent living with the comet, #rosetta scientists reflect on some of the mission’s unexpected discoveries, the mysteries solved and the new questions raised. “Rosetta has completely changed our picture of #Comets,” says Eberhard Grün, an interdisciplinary scientist working on the Rosetta mission at the Max Planck Institute for Nuclear Physics in Heidelberg, Germany. “Previously, they were pictured as dirty ice balls – or, as some prefer, icy #dust balls – but now we know them, or at least this one, to be geologically complex (...)

#Science #instruments #magnetic_field #perihelion #science #water

#Rosetta finds #magnetic_field-free bubble at #comet
▻http://blogs.esa.int/rosetta/2016/03/11/rosetta-finds-magnetic-field-free-bubble-at-comet

This article is mirrored from the main ESA web portal. ESA’s #rosetta spacecraft has revealed a surprisingly large region around its host comet devoid of any magnetic field. When ESA’s #Giotto flew past #Comet_Halley three decades ago, it found a vast magnetic-free region extending more than 4000 km from the nucleus. This was the first observation of something that scientists had until then only thought about but had never seen. Interplanetary space is pervaded by the #solar_wind, a flow of electrically charged particles streaming from the Sun and carrying its magnetic field across the Solar System. But a comet pouring lots of gas into space obstructs the solar wind. At the interface between the solar wind and the coma of gas around the active comet, particle collisions as well as sunlight (...)

#Comet_67P #Comets #Images #Science #diamagnetic_cavity #rpc #RPC-Mag

#Rosetta’s #far_excursion to study the #coma at large
▻http://blogs.esa.int/rosetta/2015/09/18/rosettas-far-excursion-to-study-the-coma-at-large

Next week, on 23 September, #rosetta will depart on a three-week excursion that will take it up to 1500 km from the nucleus of #Comet_67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko, much farther than it has been since arriving at the comet in August 2014. The main #Science goal driving this course of action is to study the coma of 67P/C-G on a broader scale while the comet’s activity is still high in the post-perihelion phase. While almost all #Instruments on Rosetta will be operating during the excursion, this exploration of the coma at large will be especially interesting to study the #plasma environment of the comet with the Rosetta Plasma Consortium (RPC) instruments. In particular, scientists are aiming at detecting the #bow_shock, a boundary between the comet’s magnetosphere and the ambient solar wind. (...)

#Comets #Operations #magnetic_field #rpc

Behind the scenes of ‘The #singing_comet’
▻http://blogs.esa.int/rosetta/2014/12/19/behind-the-scenes-of-the-singing-comet

Last month, shortly before #Rosetta released Philae to land on #Comet_67P/C-G, we posted an article on this blog titled “The singing comet”. It presented an audio track based on data collected with one of the #Instruments from the #rosetta Plasma Consortium (RPC) on board the orbiter. Perhaps because it added a new layer to the Rosetta story, by engaging another of our human senses to the immersive experience of “being there” at the comet with the spacecraft, this ‘song’ became a worldwide sensation. By now, it has been listened to more than 5.6 million times on SoundCloud. But what does this ‘music’ mean, and how is it possible to ‘record’ sounds in space at all? Readers of this blog have asked a number of questions about “The singing comet”, so we’ve written this post to provide some more details (...)

#Comets_and_culture #Fun_stuff #magnetic_field #music #rpc #RPC-Mag #sonification